Fragments

The Attic

The Attic

Ever wondered what happens behind your back? 

The attic is unstirred dust and forgotten instruments. There is a telescope, a cello, a clock, worn leather boots, and bulky wooden furniture. A gramophone and a birdcage grumble in their cobwebby corners about the rust around their edges. I am the old armchair in the corner that no one wanted to sit on. I was moved up here because downstairs had to make room for their new gaming chairs.

One by one, we were banished to the attic. At first we tried everything to get the family to notice us – the books rattling the shelves, the records playing themselves, the easel thumping its wooden legs. But no one could hear us up here. The chatter of newer, shinier things drowned us out and after a while we gave up. How could we ever hope to be heard over surround-sound?

In the middle of an ordinary stretch of time – there is no window in the attic so we cannot tell if it is night or day – we hear the vibrations of footsteps on the staircase.

‘I bet it’s the tricycle this time,’ says the birdcage with a sigh.

‘Shhh,’ says a covered painting near the bookcase. ‘These steps sound different.’

The doorknob clicks and turns, and a small girl is backlit by the yellow light of the stairwell. She has dark hair and large eyes; she looks curious. A stuffed teddy bear dangles from her left hand as she pushes the door open with her right. We have not seen this girl before although we have heard her growing up below us: muffled newborn cries, tentative first steps, halting attempts at speech.

We are a new kind of quiet now, exchanging furtive glances between ourselves. We think to one another, is she the one we’ve been waiting for? She steps into the room, her gaze moving in a slow arc around the perimeter. The teddy bear slips from her fingers to the floor. She stands in front of the covered painting by the bookcase. All of us tense invisibly as she places a hand on the sheet draped over its frame. She tugs with her tiny fists and in a swirl of dust the painting is revealed. We hold our silent breaths – will she run? But her eyes grow wide and her legs buckle beneath her as she sits on the throw rug. She stares, transfixed. The painting begins to writhe and glow beneath her wondrous gaze. The room is filled with a shining, pulsing hope.