My Gem Stone
(Flash Fiction)
My childhood bedroom is so lacking and dull in my mind’s eye- especially when compared to its spectacular secret.
The room is little more than a simple rectangle. It is small with borders falling in on me through my peripheral gaze, serving as little more than a vestibule or antechamber to its curtained window and the sanctuary that lays beyond. The carpet is mossy-green and smooshes under bare feet. Maybe the color is more like that of ochre or olives, certainly it’s not like that of a four-leafed clover. Who cares?
For me, the bedroom has but two purposes. First, the everyday and obvious: I need a space in which to sleep and in which to have the privacy to slip in and out of my school uniform. Second, and more importantly, the room serves as a storage hangar; for as tiny as the room is, its walls are seemingly propped up by a mish-mashed assortment of bookshelves, each bursting with the variegated spines of my best childhood companions.
The wall directly across from the door holds the magic, serving as the surround to a very large and curtained square opening. With the curtains closed, one could reasonably assume that this is a simple if somewhat significantly-sized window. Undulating folds of a heavy cotton-poly blend are pulled together, a field of yellow daffodils and daisies meet the eye and the room is shrouded in a dusk-like, orange-yellow darkness. However, the meeting point of the curtain panels betrays the true time and nature of the day for the panels do not quite touch, and they most definitely do not overlap one another as Mom says they should. This space that shouldn’t be burns with a hypnotic, come-touch-me, bright, hot white light. And when you do reach out for the light, pushing the curtains aside, what you find is the most beautiful of places.
A gem-like prism with space for one.
A trio of glass panes latticed with lead pushes out from the confines of the room, forming a perfect bay of luminous sunshine. The space is afloat, tethered to the house only by its floor. Wood so smooth, likely from generations of children’s derrieres having wiggled and rubbed comfortably against it, forms the base of the bay. Old Lady Wagner’s lesson on prepositions comes to mind, for I can climb into the space, but I opt to triumphantly dive up and onto its cloud of cushions. I feel as if I could crawl right through the glass, and shimmy along the branches of the cherry blossom tree that stretch beside me. I clearly do my best grammatical thinking here.
Hunkered down, I excavate my books from between the multicolored pillows. My mind disappears into a world of words. My body melts, ice-cream-cone-on-a-hot-fourth-of-July-style, seamlessly morphing from being cross-legged and seated to being splayed flat on my back and eventually overflowing with a flip onto my belly. Time loses its measure, and the present is chronicled by the turns of pages.
“Come down for dinner!”
My mother’s voice breaks through the imaginary force field that separates the world of the window seat from everywhere else. I look away from the curtains and look to the world outside, trying to pretend that the force is impenetrable and in full-effect. I can see all the way down to the High Street and my nostrils flare as if the smell of the sausage rolls in the Jonquil Bakery window has reached my sky-borne perch. Flakes of crust stick to the roof of my mouth and the salty meat taste makes me salivate.
“Hello? Did you hear me? Please come down here right now.”
I slide my hand under the pillows, enjoying the feel of the wood against the pressing tips of my fingers. I pull out my defensive supplies- a loosely bundled collection of red, plastic clothespins held together by a knotted, yellow, velvet hair ribbon. This same hair ribbon has proven itself to be so useful, especially during my “no-more-dog-ears” phase when it doubled as a bookmark for my rather worn copy of Jane Eyre.
“I’m coming up there and I’m not happy about it!”
I fully sense that her annoyance with me is crescendoing to a critical point, as is the sound of her tread on the stairs. Remaining seated at the heart of my secret gemstone, I quickly draw the curtains closed, clutching them together. With practiced hands, I clasp closed the traitorous gap with my mother’s clothespins and hope for the best.
Radha Lin Chaddah
May, 2016