I knew something was different as soon as I opened the door.
It was the smell...stale and old, like an ancient house that had been kept dark for centuries.
This house is old and well stocked with more nick-nacks, battered lamps and ceramic vases than one could ever hope to find a place for, which could certainly make the claustrophobic feel rather constricted. Yes, at times the overflow of forgotten junk can be annoying, but it gives this place a decidedly grandmotherly feel (a feeling I quite enjoy now that my own grandmother has passed). Until today the air in the house has been fresh...unless you ventured into the basement after a particularly nasty day of baptisms and defecations by the two house-rats (I dare not call them dogs because these animals lack any of the common sense or cuteness of their canine counterparts) and in those instances a gasmask would not save you from the assault - but I digress...
The smell stopped me in the entry way, backpack still slung, key still in hand. I was taken aback because it was so unexpected - the house smelled normal when I left this morning, but the odor that enveloped me when I returned was the kind that takes decades to grow and cultive into the overwhelming musk that it was. Yet, this smell, was new - as if the years of dust and mildew that must surely plague this place decided to make themselves known...as if this already ancient house decided to grow old overnight.
Though neither bad nor good, the smell assaulted me in much the same way that the animal urinal that is the basement sometimes does. I made my way through the main hall towards the staircase, inhaling through my nose, thinking maybe the next sniff would clue me in to what this odor was. As I climbed the stairs towards my room on the second floor it became obvious that the smell was getting stronger. Though reminiscent of the kind of odor which emanates from every molecule of an old house, this smell clearly had a source and I was getting closer. The mystery was solved when I reached the second floor...
Books...piles and piles of old, worn books. I looked into the room which flanks the tops of the stairs and realized that every shelf which had previously been adorned by these centuries of words were now empty and bare. A new roommate is coming - I dare not speculate what this monstrous task did to my landlady's nerves.
So it was the removal of all this forgotten knowledge that became the cause of the new smell. I realized that here lay before me pages and pages of brilliance that had been allowed to sit and wither for decades. Even worse was the fact that these were certainly destined for some even darker corner of the house. I was looking at a mountain of worlds that would never be explored, thoughts that would not be entertained...voices that would never be heard. What amounted to nothing but paper and dust to her, seemed a lost treasure to me.
I began sorting...looking for gold.
It's been a few days now since the books were expelled from their homes. They still sit in the hallway at the top of the stairs, overflowing up onto the steps which lead to the third floor. The smell is still there but not as pungent. Part of me wants the smell to remain because it makes me remember things that, truthfully, I can't remember. It's on the tip of my tongue...some ghost of a memory locked far away in the recesses of my mind that this dank, earthy smell is associated with. Maybe someday it will come to me, but for now I quite enjoy the way this smell haunts me. I hope it remains...
...because when it is gone, it means those pages of forgotten gold will, too, be gone...banished to some remote, far off corner of the world.
Comments