You know those feel good, homey, comfort kind of homes? The ones with the bright coloured felt couches like the orange ones or the yellow ones with the olden day looking tapestry hanging off the back? And the vinyl covered wall and the record player with the cute little plants all in the windowsill. The hanging ones too. The old wood wall-units and glass coffee tables, tall wooden book shelves with the best books, and those old Victorian looking rugs that just tie the whole room together? The old oak side tables and the chandelier that is always full of dust but looks pretty anyway. The windowsills with the bench that you can sit on during early Sunday mornings, with your coffee. The winding stairs, arched doorways, and the high ceilings that make you feel like a queen.
I enter and it’s like somebody turned off the sound. Like I stepped in the door and stepped right out of time. I take one step at a time, one foot in front of the other trying to bring back some sense of reality. But it all seemed fake. Like it was staged. Then the lights got brighter, then darker, the chandelier seemingly rocking back and forth, the cupboards opening and closing. And I was spinning. Or the ground was spinning. For a brief second I felt weightless and I became so in tune with my surroundings. Then it felt like everything stopped again, it was still.
I stumbled into what seemed like a layer just passed reality. The curtains were peeled back and I peeked through for just a moment. I felt everything at once, my head became faint. I was fake agreeing, begging a closed heart for forgiveness, telling an unnecessary lie, smiling at nothing but everything at the same time. Then it was dark, except for the dim light coming in through the curtains. I was in a trance and the walls were closing in on me. I could reach out and touch them, they were getting closer.
For a moment I scratched at my wrinkled skin, mad at life for giving me any signs of aging, but then again I was weightless and I savored the moment for it is only once in a while our hearts can admire the true beauty of life and cherish the preciousness of the shortness of time. And it is rare for most to get the privilege to peel back those curtains of reality, even for just a moment, with the advantage of diving into the layers of life, to not be limited to the subjective, set in stone, barren world we live in.
And maybe this proved me a little mad of sorts or even a little broken but that didn’t sit too bad with me, knowing that all the best people I’ve known had a little madness in them and seemed a little broken. You see, it was the madness and the hurt of the past that drove us and that connected us on a deeper level. It shaped us, it was all part of human destiny and we let go of a lot of it, but it was that connection that allows us to see the hurt of the past in the eyes of our friends and foes alike.
If you like reading short stories like these, you may like some of my other’s:
