Paranopoly

Chapter 2 : Twenty-Five Years Later

Jonty poked a finger into the yellow door of the games room and watched as it creaked open. The room beyond was as dark as the night sky outside. He turned on the light and entered, closing the door on a small dog, preventing it from following him into the hut. He noticed that the storage cupboard door was ajar and that the Monopoly box was lying on the table in the middle of the room. 'They never put things away after themselves.' Jonty's note-to-self wouldn't have sounded so odd had anybody other than Jonty ever been in the games room for over ten years. He checked the storage cupboard, nodding with satisfaction that all was as it should be. Board games stacked in piles, comics and hard cover annuals in their designated boxes and the 1980's vintage Swingball box, still unopened in the corner. With a contented hum, he fetched the Monopoly box from the table and placed it on top of the pile of board games.

A wave of what some would call Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (what Jonty referred to as 'being thorough') hit him in the face. With the force of nature itself, Jonty whipped the lid from the Monopoly box and took out the folded game board. 'Money – deeds – chance – ', he stopped, gazing into an empty trough in the white plastic tray. He reached into the inside pocket of his tweed jacket and removed a small black leather-bound book which had a gold pen inserted down the spine. He removed the pen and flicked through the book until he reached his handwritten inventory for the Monopoly set. His eyes flicked frantically from list to box, checking each item in his head as he went. 'Deeds, community chest, hotels, houses – '. As he pushed the tiny plastic bag containing the hotels and houses back into the trough he closed his book and sighed. 'The counters are still missing,' he whispered, adjusting the piece of burlap that hung over the left side of his face and pulling the peak of his black hat down until the rim rested on his one remaining eyebrow, 'Will I never see them with my eye again?' Slowly and sadly, Jonty placed the lid on the box, pulled his jacket around him, stepped out of the cupboard and closed the door. Gazing about the dusty disused room, he imagined it as he always did, full of laughing children playing board games and regaling stories of great deeds and accomplishments in the corner where the tatty sofa stood. Wiping a tear from his face with one of the two remaining fingers on his right hand, he turned off the light and stepped out into the night, locking the door behind him.

'Woof!'

Saturday morning and the sound of the waves crashing on the cliff below were mixing with the bark of seagulls, filling Simon's ears as he stood, remembering. His mind repeating the moment Louise had left him on that cliff top, the last day of his holiday in 1985; a Saturday morning. The way he said her name softly as she left, an attempt to hold onto that which he'd already lost. Whether it was the fact they lived too far away from each other, whether he'd said something he shouldn't or whether she just didn't like him that much, Simon was standing on that same cliff top reliving that moment as he had done for the last twenty five years. The caravans that had once been bright and clean now stood corroded and grubby; some with rusted holes and others with flat tyres and broken windows.

'Louise!', Simon said excitedly, pretending as he did every few days that she'd returned after so long. 'How long has it been? I hardly recognised you!' Simon paused, imagining her response before continuing, 'I knew you'd come back. They all will eventually. Probably.' Simon felt that same hopeless dejection that had haunted him seemingly forever, battling it by continuing his conversation with a mental projection of Louise Anderson, 'So, what have you been up to? Me? You don't want to know about me. Well, ok then. I passed my driving test last year, 3rd time lucky.' Simon paused to reconsider, 'I mean, I can ride a bike. Oh, I saw Fleetwood Mac in concert a few years ago. Great they were. They did that one about the bird.' Simon turned and gazed out to sea once more for inspiration, 'I won the national Kite flying championships – hmm – I won the local kite flying championships – I managed to get a kite in the air yesterday.'

He paused once more, making a mental list of all the things that defined him as a forty-year-old man. All of his achievements, the things he'd managed to tick off his lifelong to-do list, the moments that took his breath away and the moments that shaped his personality. 'Hi Louise, I like spaghetti hoops!' With a shake of the head, he turned his back to the sea, gazing once more at the place he'd last seen the back of Louise's head disappearing over the hill that led down into the main area of the Caravan Park. 'She's just going to walk away again like last time. We could talk about the old days I suppose.' This crumb of comfort brought a flicker of a smile to Simon's lips before he spoke to Louise's mental projection once more, 'Louise! How long has it been?'