a house of his own​

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            The first thing I noticed was the storage room’s dilapidated window. We were roaming around our yard and I had to peek a little to see if something had moved or if someone was watching me. I was so sure I felt someone move a piece of furniture. I wanted to open the door. 

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            Sometimes I imagine the storage room was never there, a structure that appears and disappears in the map. I grew up believing that a poltergeist roamed around the quiet and dimly lit room. And I’d only be brave enough to enter with my brother. 

 

            “There is nothing to be afraid of. The ghosts are our friends,” he would tell me.
 

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            When I was young, our grandfather kept the space to himself as if it was his sanctuary. Even after we renovated our house and prepared a room for him on the second floor, he chose to occupy the storage room. He refused to move to his room, so he remained with the broken drawers, old cardboards and a woven-wooden bed frame. He chose to stay with the things that belonged to the former residents instead of the newly painted room that we have scrubbed clean. We almost left no trace of its past but he held unto the things that used to be someone else’s possessions. 

 

            One afternoon, I entered the storage room and fiddled through the items scattered inside. I finally understood why he kept an inventory of archaic belongings. People have lived in this house years before us. There was nothing more dreadful than watching it rot and perish – he could only cherish recollections by living with the objects.
 

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            I sometimes feel that I’d grow up doing the same.

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