Random Pieces Of Writing That Pop Out Of Nowhere

Remember

As part of the preparation for our AS English exam our teacher had us write up a narrative, a vlog script, and a comparison piece. This is the narrative.

I dedicated this to MyOwnOnceUponATime because they reminded me about this site, and really made my day yesterday. I hope this is up to scratch.

The room is a mixture of shadows; dark and light painting your world in shades of grey. Though you remember the walls as a deep burgundy (or were they cream?), just like the wine your mum liked to drink, now they're muted; a darker grey of cobbled stone walls the further from the light it goes. A glaring patch of white, however, beams at the room through the large front window (It's never sunny why is it so bright out?).

Everything is grey, greyer than usual – even the things you distinctly recall holding colour, bright splatters that should shine in this new (old) monochrome world. The ratty love seat, a dusty, sandy brown originally, is now cold and leached of all character. Distant. Neither as comfortable nor as familiar as it once was (should be), its markings and patterns are vague, yet distinctly square and appropriate for the late nineties. You sit, stiffly and uniform, in a place once so casually lounged upon.

Before you looms the fireplace. Whether there is a mantle or not is up for debate, as it what hangs on the wall above (photos? There must be photos. But weren't they stuck to the side of the stairs? Positioned on the dresser by the window?). Only the floor surrounding it is clear: half a stretched hexagon of dark, cool slate. The feel of it is relieving; cold seeping through the knees of your jeans, the side of your thigh, numbing your fingertips (you don't recall kneeling. Moving. Shouldn't there be a coffee table in the way?) in an achingly familiar way. Besides you resides a coal black iron stand, and its many fire-care apparatus (it's a gas fire why are they even there?): poker, prongs, sweep, tongs and that one (f a s c i n a t i n g) candle snuffer, its long, twisted handle ends in a solid, decorative curl. The ridges are still crystal clear, tiny fingers roving curved shafts of metal as balance flits from one end to another.

Stretching out before the fire is an iron grate, a guardian of the flames (rare as they are. You're not to touch the fire). Remember using it as a prop for building forts? Of course you do. You just tug and drag it over to the corner, just between the big pouffe (that's where your brother's Christmas presents nestled each year, isn't it?) and the wooden cupboard built into the wall. It's an activity you did often, to the mixed relief and frustration of your mum: pick a toy or a book, steal a pillow from the sofa, maybe a blanket, slog the grate over and ensconce yourself in the corner. (It's not even a real fort) Your corner.

There's a nook deep into the far wall. Wooden panelling (at least on the bottom. the rest of it must be plastered. probably). At one point it held photo frames, another a television (awed, watching as the square screen slides forward to reveal its monstrous, ugly back) that entertained your family for almost a decade. It's a burst of brightness in the shadows of the room. You want to crawl inside, feel the static feeling build from socks sliding over varnished wood (did you ever get the chance?)

Beneath the stairs there hides a dresser (you assume it's a dresser, it certainly isn't a desk) where an ancient Dell laptop broods. It's a dull, gunmetal grey, scratched and dented due to years of resentment and neglect. Oozing from it is the pure essence of slow processing and frustration. You distinctly recall twisting; torso to one side and legs splayed another as feet fiddled with the decorative metal handles of the cupboard (does it classify as a cupboard? You really can't tell anymore).

Adjacent to the cramped workspace is the archway leading to the kitchen and bathroom. There was a folding plastic door there once (it broke. what doesn't), you've seen it in the videos of when your siblings were young. The carpet there is different (or is it linoleum), older and patchy, serving only as a way to cover the bare floor between the living room and the kitchen. The door jamb (there's no door can you even call it that?) has lines and dates carved into, initials marking the perpetrators. How time flies.

While the back of the room, shaded and dark as it is, holds details and anecdotes that drift and flutter through your mind, the front is startlingly bare, details seemingly drowned in the harsh white light of the outside. It feels empty.

Identical to the first, a love seat squats beneath the window. Your mum moved it ninety degrees at one point, swapping it with the varnished bronze (gold? bronze?) handled dresser (is this a dresser? Yes. Must be) that previously occupied the space. It's necessary, certainly. A cat (yours. Pwdin. Grey, like everything here. Your neighbours stole him. Bloody pensioners) tore the paper border dividing the cream and wine walls (ah), exposing the poor job your mum did painting when she bought the house (before you were even born oh god).

It's still empty though.

The glass door leads to the front hallway, just next to the wooden slats of the climbing staircase (something about them is unnerving. Always). It's frosted glass and pine wood. You wonder idly how it never shattered with how hard it'd been routinely slammed. It feels out of place in the room. Mismatched. Everything is an amalgamation of what-is-what-was-what-isn't.

You don't recall whether or not the ceiling light has a shade or not. Are there photos on the walls? Paintings? Is the ceiling patterned like your mum's bedroom? Should there be rugs? Blankets folded neatly over the backs of the sofas? More chairs? End tables? Where did your cat sleep? You had a dog once (Cymro, babi del, tyd yma!). Is the space even as large as you recall it to be? Shouldn't there be more?

. . .

Is anything ever really like we remember it to be?