As
the rain of a cold, dreary December afternoon pounded against the
small, high window, other things came flooding back to her. Coughing
and sneezing due to the dust, Eilidh flicked the light switch on and,
taking in the room in greater detail, she spotted several more items
that had once been dear to her. She stepped over some boxes and edged
past a wardrobe to get to the far side of the room, remembering the
peeling patterned wallpaper, the threadbare carpet, the musty smell,
and the itchiness she had often felt after spending long spells in
the room due to the dust. Subconsciously scratching at the back of
her wrist, she then pulled the sheet off a large painting that rested
against a sideboard; a landscape, snowy mountains, a wooden shack, a
dirt track, a calm river, trees. She had loved this painting. It had
featured as the background to many of her expeditions through her
Grandmother's past. One thing about it had always bothered her,
though, and she smiled again as she remembered. There were several
small boats on the river, but the artist had, for some reason,
painted one of them half way off the edge of the picture. On the one
hand, she supposed that it was simply to add to the illusion of life,
of a living, breathing world. But on the other, it just didn't sit
quite right in Eilidh's eyes, and somehow it made her feel as though
the painting was somehow incomplete, that the half-boat was an
anomaly, taking away from the otherwise perfect piece.
Turning
away, Eilidh almost tripped over another box that lay in the middle
of the floor; the box, she now remembered, that she had been looking
through last time she was here. Sitting down next to it, she began
rifling through the contents, remembering this thing or that, even
remembering the point where she had stopped last time. She smiled yet
again, thinking how strange it was that such detail of things long
forgotten can return so quickly, given the right stimuli. Not many
people get the chance to return to something exactly as they left it
after so long, and the experience was electric, her brain working
overtime, her heart racing, sweat breaking out on her forehead, a
result of the freight train that was barrelling through her mind,
picking up memories along the way and thrusting them into the
forefront of her consciousness.
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