Digging Me (Part One)

B

ut there was something else I wanted to say, something else I had to tell; a story kept for too long which turns my nights into endless nightmares. The exact circumstances are of no importance, though you as a reader may like to know. But then I ask you, should we call a given event differently just because of the circumstances? We may consider it from another perspective, analyze it under a different light, but the essence won’t change. There’s not much time. Or so I believe. How I got here, I don’t know, I can’t remember. What I’m sure of is the way I’m leaving this place, this torment which started before it began.

My life was good, or wasn’t it? I had everything I had always longed for, a nice big house, a fast car, the perfect job, health as strong as steel, and a loving family, a loving family, sounds funny. However, I wasn’t happy. And it’s not that I meant to be cheerful 24/7, but not even a moment’s joy was I allowed. How I realized this, I’m not certain, I just became aware. It was as when you’ve been with your eyes closed for too long and then, when you open them, the bright is too intense and it blinds you. Reality did that to me. I hit a wall, a five meters high wall. But I put up with it, and got over it, or so I think.

It was at night, it was a night’s nights. Not a breath could be heard, not a shadow differentiated from the darkness, and the heath was suffocating me. I had to put an end to it all. Reflection when away for a long time hurts, it startles. I was alive and I became conscious of it. All the years before it I was not living my life, I’m aware now. My senses became sharper. There’s not much time left. As I was going downstairs, it was like descending right to hell, or whatever the way you call it. I descended with hesitating determination, my hands sweating life, my heart pumping crimson blood. The carpet succumbed under my heavy boiling steps. It didn’t take long before I had gripped it. My life hasn’t been the same since then.

If only my thoughts could be hushed. Someone’s approaching…

My Grandma’s Rocking Chair

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I loved going to my grandma’s house during the summer. It was sited in the entrance of a long forgotten road that led to an analogous town. The house itself was not an outstanding building, it had its years, and it was made of adobe, very rustic. What captivated me were the smells, the sensations, the secrecy all around. Every year I went, everything was at the same time familiar and new to me.  There was not much to do but I was always busy. I liked feeding the hens, climbing the damask tree or the vine, and searching ancient treasures in every nook and cranny. I changed every time I went there; the country side made of me a different child than that that lived in the city. Simple everyday things fascinated me. I remember gazing at my grandmother while she sat in her rocking chair to knit. Sometimes she would sit there for an hour and knit a whole sleeve, drawing charming patterns I would not understand. It was usually at 18:30 that she stood up and prepared something for me and my siblings to eat. However, I would not go after her all at once, for it was when she stood up that I witnessed what no one else ever did. My grandma’s rocking chair started moving to and fro in a steady motion. When the movement began fainting, to my amazement, it would begin again and more intense than before. If someone came, I’d remove my eyes away from the chair only to find, when I set my eyes on it again that it had stopped moving. Each afternoon I sat on the floor waiting for my grandmother to go to the kitchen so I could start the scrutiny of the peculiar phenomenon. Each summer I would do the same. Each summer till my grandmother passed away. When it happened that, my mother decided not to go to my grandmother’s house any longer.

Many years have elapsed since then. I can but recollect the smells, the sensations, and the secrecies, my secret. The rocking chair is at home now, in the parlor. Every now and then, at night, I can hear the creaking sound of the old wood of the chair, and I know my grandmother’s there, knitting beautiful patterns. It is my secret.