The parson inserted the key in the lock and turned the key. It resisted, but working it a bit overcame the resistance. He twisted the knob and pushed. The door swung open with ease.
Musty was the smell, the stuffed up smell of several years of uncirculated air. Dim was the light. Pulled-open curtains allowed the sun’s rays to dance about illuminating living room corners and awakening the eeriness of an abode long unoccupied. Dust rested easily upon scattered pieces of furniture, sofa abandoned by end tables, rocker alone in a corner, china cabinet empty and askew.
The hall was more than dim. Footsteps echoed into each accentuating emptiness that needed to be filled. Blinds opened throughout the rooms again invited light to penetrate the dreariness. None of the bedrooms contained furniture.
A old well-indented recliner kept watch over the family room staring longingly toward the fireplace and the cable hanging from the wall as though searching for a TV, waiting for an occupant. Under the picture window a buffet table upheld three stacks of books, one of which consisted of fourteen Reader’s Digest Condensed Books. the other two an assortment of novels. Magazines piled a dozen high framed the stacks, consisting of issues of Time, Newsweek, TV Digest, and one copy of Atlantic.
Cabinets in the kitchen sheltered delicate china cups and saucers, abandoned to wonder why they were not packed with the rest. A cast iron skillet rested above the long ago extinguished gas flame, an old, old skillet the avenue to a thousand previous meals.
It was a stately house the parson inventoried, not built but constructed with craftsmanship. A kitchen cabinet contained doors six feet tall that folded out and then unfolded once and then once again with shelves on each extended door extensive enough to host a season of food. The refrigerator space betrayed the house’s age by the absence of an ice maker pipe.
A door at the end of the breakfast area whispered. The parson opened it to discover steps leading down into almost darkness. With the agileness of a senior citizen he descended into the shadows. Seemingly out-of-place blinds obscured the light’s insistence on penetrating the basement dimness. Once opened the space, bordered by concrete walls, revealed a collection.
A hospital bed sat forlornly in the center of the space, an old institutional bed with crank mechanisms for raising and lowering the foot and head. It seemed so incongruous resting in the exact center of the basement with nothing near as though it was somehow contagious and the rest of the room wished to remain apart.
A bird house rested on an old workbench. Old, old fading green paint was half covered with a more recent coating of brown whose container sat beside with paint-stiffened brush resting on top. Beside it rested the remains of a bird’s nest, apparently having been removed from the house with delicate care. Above the workbench, from a rafter, hung an ancient crosscut timber saw and on the wall behind a set of screwdrivers, arranged in precise order. The surface of the workbench was potted with marks from hammer blows, chisel chips, and other hints of a master of tools. Inside the drawer of the workbench were deposited a set of planes dating from the 1930s.
The parson headed back up the steps and through the house closing blinds as he went. His promise of “looking in on Uncle Howard’s house” made to a friend complete, the parson pulled to and again locked the door on a lifetime of memory.
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