Member-only story
I Remember…
I remember the old house, the way it was before it was half torn down and became the new house. I saw it being re-built, but I still think of it as a place that exists, not just a memory.
I remember the old garage, dark and dank with unfinished walls and the ancient, rusty laundry sink. I stand today in the “new” garage, painted a crisp white and bright with tubes of florescent light. I stand there and I know it is the same place, that I am in the exact same spot on the earth, but part of me can’t stop believing that the old garage still exists and is a place I could go, a few layers of memory deeper.
The hall closet had a trap door that led under the house. The closet is no longer there, and neither is the trap door. Where they used to be, there is now a shiny bathtub and black-and-white checked floors. But when someone asked me a while back how to get under the house, I automatically turned around and began leading them to… where? To the house’s center. To the absent hall closet, the absent trap door. A moment of confusion, walking toward a dark and musty place that no longer existed. Walking toward a memory.
