Frannyman

This is not really a story, it's just something I wrote about an episode of my childhood that always comes back to my mind. It was originally going to go on the "Remember when..." thread, but I got a little bit carried away and ended up writing a big deal of stuff. So I decided to give it the shape of a story and post it here.

I used to write a lot more when I was younger. I've always loved writing. I've studied redaction and journalism. I was once even a jounalism teacher for a short period of time. I won some prices for stories and poems I wrote back in school.

But well, those days are long gone. I went to college to study sciences. The only thing I've been writing ever since are song lyrics. Plus, writing stuff in English is another deal for me. My vocabulary is really limited and my redaction is not as good as I wished it where.

But I still wanted to share this with you guys nevertheless. It started as a post, so I guess it had to finish as one. Here goes.



The Forbidden Room
Type: Forum Post (?)
Genre: Autobiographical

Today, when I was as usual hanging around at the Aximsite forums, I jumped across this very nice thread I about stuff that users remembered. It was just a game: you just had to post a phrase starting with “Remember when…”. My first reaction, no surprise about it, was to post something quite silly… But it had to be something good, because I’ve never posted anything before to that thread… So I begun to think… and think… and think… Something good to finish the phrase “Remember when…” with.

Before I knew it I was lost in my memories, remembering episodes from my childhood, about my friends, my parents, my brother… But as always, all my memories ended up focusing around the house I grew in. It belonged to my grandparents before my parents moved in. It was a very nice one storey building with a big garden in Trujillo, the city where it's spring all year.

I remember there was this musty and dark store room that was always locked and had some of my grandparents stuff inside. I always wanted so badly to see what was inside... I remember passing everyday in front of the door trying to figure out how to get inside or to search all over the house for the key...

I remember how exited I was this one time I found the key hanging... My parent's weren't and I was like... afraid, I don't know... the idea of actually being inside always gave me the creeps... after thinking about it and walk nervously in front of the door for some time I finally decided to go inside and have a look...

I don't know if it was because of my age (I was about 7 at the time) or else, but I recall the place was truly magical... It shouldn't had been bigger than 12x12ft, as I could tell several years after, but I was quite small at the time and everything tends to seem massive at that age. As in the rest of the house, the floor was made of long mahogany tiles, there was an old dark wardrobe at the left corner of the room, a cheap looking bookshelf facing it, some medium sized boxes and a collection of some of the most strange and marvelous objects I had ever seen. All covered by a rather tick layer of dust.

A single bright ray of light entered the room through a small skylight with broken glasses on top of the wardrobe, giving the rest of the place an opaque golden radiance that appeared to come from the room itself. That, combined with that faded musty smell and the thought that I was more than definitely getting into trouble if someone found out where I was made the place feel completely halted in time.

There was this real old rocking horse with the paint all faded and with one of the rockers out of place lying against the right wall, with two or three rolled up carpets or something quite similar leaning against it; a pendulum clock without the pendullum; an oriental or Indian-looking wooden statue of a woman in a robe with a missing hand; a flag holder with 3 flags I couldn’t recognize covered in what looked like transparent cellophane on the opposite corner of the wardrobe, with the beam of light falling almost right on the base of it; a broken large black accordion, perhaps an Argentinean Bandoneon; an smaller red concertina accordion; a plaster bust of a mustachioed man on the bookshelf, full of old books and big pictures and portraits in big frames of people I didn't knew (but looked strangely familiar...) piled up against a wall.

I remember I checked the content of the boxes I had more at hand. One of them was crammed up with enticing old sepia pictures, books half eaten by moths and old notebooks and folders. Other was full of small trophy-looking statues, including a gorgeous 15 inches bronzeplated horse head and a collection of antique photo cameras. The third box was perhaps what I found most interesting of the room, it had toys! There where some dolls and a couple of very creepy looking cuddly toys, one of the biggest and most beautiful spinning top complete with its string, an small net sack of very colorful marbles and two slingshots, both almost identical, carved cleanly from a single piece of light colored wood, with a black leather pocket and strangely tick black leather bands. I, of course, couldn’t resist the temptation of holding one of them and aim, seeing through it’s arms, holding the body with my left hand and pulling the pocket with my right hand. The rubbers were a bit rigid but it felt splendid in my hands…

The wardrobe was beautifully carved with lots of detail, it's leggys resembled feline paws and was full of clothes. Among the things that caught my eye where some strange looking dresses, my grandmother's, no doubt about it and a hat! An I'll-take-a-rabbit-out-of-here-anytime dark top hat. I just didn’t felt like trying it on. I can’t remember why.

I remember perfectly how I suddenly felt something weird in the air and started to progressively freak out and feel the need to leave the place immediately. I don't know what exactly happened, if I heard a noise or something, the fact is I suddenly shot out of there, closed the door, locked the room and lied back against the door with my heart pounding like crazy for a while that prolongs indefinitely in my memory...

I didn't talked about this with anybody nor I got the chance to get back in the room until we sold the house, when I was 13. I cannot manage to put in words what I felt when I found myself back in the room. This time it was completely empty. Since we had not being living in the house for months, I never knew an uncle of mine went to the house some time ago and emptied the room. Only the bookshelf, the broken-glass skylight and the faint musty smell remained. It was about August at the time, so it was rather dark, with no magical golden radiance coming from anywhere or whatsoever... I haven't felt any older ever since. I was just a regular guy standing in this dirty stained-walls room that had been closed for such a real long time...

Almost half of the objects in the room belonged to my greatgrandfather, a fondly reminded politician and loving father and husband, who lived on first-hand the golden days of the Republic and always played a relevant role disregarding the regime. The sepia pictures, the accordions, the statue and the framed pictures where his. The toys I saw belonged to my mother and one of her brothers, when I asked her about them she told me I had missed the box where the good toys where! The wardrobe was my grandparent’s and the hat was no other than the one my grandpa used in his wedding.

The statue and the clock where restored and now are in my library back in Trujillo, among with the plaster bust and some other little statues and ornaments that where supposedly in the room but I didn’t got to see the time I sneaked in. I don't know what happened to the rest of the stuff, though I’ve seen some of the stuff scattered the family’s houses, things like the framed pictures and such. I might just ask my mother one of this days and have her tell me the story.

Anyhow, there are still some times now, mostly when I feel that somewhat familiar musty smell or see a bright ray of light coming through a window, when I remember how long much time has passed since I was that tireless pesky kid with the huge grin in the face and innocence in the heart who believed blindly there was always something else that we just couldn’t see. And also, how we end up forgetting that the stuff dreams themselves are made of is sometimes just behind an always locked door, waiting for us to find the key hanging one good day and decide to go inside and have a look...

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reinventing himself by going (all the way) back to the basics...

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