She didn’t have to open the note to know what was in there. She held the note close to her nose. She could smell the tobacco off his fingers. He still smoked. She smiled and nodded a little before opening the note. In long strokes of cursive writing it said, ‘Do you remember?’
The handwriting, the peculiar scent of cigarettes mixed with a light scent of cologne screamed his name. He didn’t have to sign things to make his presence felt.
She remembered. Of course she did. Those evenings, as the sun set on the lovely beach by their house. She remembered lighting up candles. They had electricity of course, but her grandma preferred candle light. The shadows danced on the chipped walls of their once beautiful mansion. The shadows hid the cracked walls and chipped paint.
‘The candle light makes the house look regal,’ her grandma would say. To her, a teenager about to enter college, the pretence was annoying, but she played along. She also swore that she would one day be rich enough to fix those chipped walls so her home would look like it did back in her childhood.
She remembered switching on the radio in her room, and as the music echoed within the four walls of her room. She dreamt of roses, gardens, pretty dresses and pretty jewellery and fancy things. And she dreamt of a prince charming… She’d lose track of time as the radio played tune after tune for her to dream to. The radio was made redundant the day he walked into her life. He was everything she dreamt of… And she had never switched on the radio until that evening that he walked away… The radio brought back her dreams and with her broken heart, she found those memories impossible to deal with.
She walked out of her room, down into the den. She opened an antic closet and pulled out an old chest. She clicked the chest open and rummaged through some stuff. Bottle caps, rag dolls, ribbons, little books and finally, that little transistor radio. She placed it on the table and stared at it.
Why was he doing this to her? Why was he taking her back to a time she had buried deep in the folds of her memory… Why?
Picture by: @nomadwanderer
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