That's All

Hidden Treasures

He slammed the wireless on the receiver, and with a tug at his scalp and an exasperated grunt of 'freaking BENJ!' he stooped down to pick up his limp wind breaker on the back of the couch, and marched through the bay doors leading to a tiny porch.

I stood there, anchored to my spot, paralyzed between going to Mikah, or receding to the back room. Given the circumstances, the bedroom didn't seem all that alarming anymore. I decided I'd have better luck with the latter. In three steps, I was back in the bedroom, the atmosphere helping to calm me once more. Somehow, the room didn't feel as sinister the second time around.

I ventured to the far corner to find what on earth had made that terrible crashing noise that had startled me the last time. In the silence, I noticed two beautifully crafted guitars next to the bed, one standing upright, the other laying on it's side as if it hadn't been placed on it's stand properly, and had fallen due to a lack of center of balance.

That's what scared me to death? A silly little instrument?

I reached for the neck of the one on it's side, a Seagull, with a soft oak finish, beautifully crafted and excruciatingly delicate looking. Better put this one back fast. The second was a magnificent Taylor. It had a mahogany base and a sleek, opal-like finish that covered every inch of it's being. They were both handsome things, and I stepped away quietly, so as to not hurt them and anger Mikah; they really were beauties.

--

Clothes. Clothes. My subconscious fought to bring me back to reality. I seriously need to get real clothes on. My tired feet took me faithfully over to the closet, where I found  plaid shirts and button downs and several shirts that all had the same odd logo spread across the chest. Desperate to find anything, I bent down to the floor of the closet. An army of shoes covered the ground were I looked, Nikes, sandals, even a pair of Sperry's, but no box. Finally, I reached up on the tip of my toes to see if I could even reach the top, and low and behold, there it was. A peach shaded shoe box-sized thing, pushed into the farthest nook of the closet, as if whoever stuffed it there only begged for it to be forgotten.

When I had finally retrieved the sad little thing, I opened it with care, dust flying left and right. On the inside of the lid I found, written in angelic, scrawly handwriting the name Katrina.

"This was hers," I gasped, only a decibel above a whisper.

With the tenderness of a mother to her newborn child, I explored the beautiful treasures inside the box. There was a pretty green blouse and a couple t-shirts with the same exotic log on them, only these were colored pink, and smelled like the earthy lavender that I had discovered when I first stepped into the safe haven. There was a spindly scarf and a worn leather bracelet that had Mikah's name engraved on the curve so as to show off to the world his name. There was so much more, but the further I dug, the more intrusive I felt. I grabbed a shirt and a pair of pants and tried not to think about who they belonged to in another time.