The Attic

Chapter 6 - The Attic

Day: Three

Date:  March 1, 2012

Time:  9:11 A.M.

     Only now that I have moved in did I realize that I had no knowledge of this place’s history. I gave it a quick thought before, but not much because all I cared about was to fix it. The former owners didn’t matter to me.

                Treading blindly, the jet of light emitted by my flash lamp was visible line due to the unsettling blackness. It became my sole guide to where I set my foot upon. Formerly the ceiling, I walked over the plank-layered attic floor towards the round window I presumed to be the same object I saw from the outside based on its crossed grilles.

                Everything was quiet that I could hear my own breathing.

                The attic was smaller than I expected it to be, or maybe it was just an optical illusion due to the dimness of the surroundings. I searched for a switch but it appeared that there weren’t any electrical wiring that ran up to this part of the house. I found no sockets either, leading me to the conclusion that this room was primarily used as a storage area. As thin as a thread, I only saw the rope that ran across the room when I was adjacent to it. It must have been what the former inhabitants of this house used as a secondary clothesline for their laundry during rainy days.

                I almost crawled whenever I came across some scaffolds. As an architect, I could say that they didn’t care much about this portion. It was a waste of precious space. It could’ve been turned into a nice hideout, or maybe a library. I thought, if I happened to be the owner, I’d transform it into my new office. Then I laughed at the ‘if’ part, because I was indeed the owner. I was pertaining to how the former ones before me neglected it.

                As I reached the window, I peeked through the looking glass and confirmed it to be indeed the one I spotted yesterday when I stared at the exact patch of grass I stood on when I first saw it. There was nothing much about the space – it was as good as empty, until I saw a pile of objects lying on the floor, abandoned. Must be the former owner’s stuff, I murmured unto myself.

                I was startled by a cobweb my head got caught at as I got closer to the remnants of the past residents of this house.

                The roof was almost at my head, rendering the room triangular to the top, its walls joint at a common line above me. From a distance, I could make out some cardboard boxes organized in a rushed manner, inferring that they were seemingly tossed around without a hint of fragility. One of them even had its contents spilled – some papers, a trophy, and others which were too many for me to examine in the dark. Amongst everything there was to spend my time with, a leather-bound collection of pages piqued my interest.  It was a diary, or a journal of some sort. It was buried beneath what I thought to be a scarf which I decided to be the perfect rag for wiping away the dust that enveloped the object. There were photo albums, but the photos would be unappreciable in this kind of surroundings. As I scanned the articles with my flash lamp, the light hit an average-sized replica of Jesus Christ, or maybe a saint, I wasn’t sure. Ceramic figurines often terrified me when I was a kid due to their watchful eyes made from plaster of Paris – wherever I went, their eyes followed.

                I sneezed a number of times all the while that I was in the attic.

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                 Having fully explored the area, I was about to leave the when I was stopped on my tracks.

                From the shadows, a pair of glowing spheres leered at me, steadily unblinking. I traced the path to what appeared as eyes with my flashlight, not in a hurry for I was afraid of what the light might hit. It glimmered brightly, contrasted to the blackness of surroundings. Pretending to be brave, I stood my ground. However, it seemed to have sniffed my façade as it went closer, aware that I was threatened.

                It was useless to delay the inevitable, I thought. The end game would still be me, face to face with whatever it was. Skipping through all the suspense, I took a deep breath as I extended my hand towards the intimidating circles, only to find that what I trembled upon was one of the gentlest creatures I’ve ever known.

                “Meow,” the monster purred as it paused upon being illuminated upon.

                Being an architect must have transformed me into a senseless coward, easily frightened by an animal which was calm in nature. Had it been a tiger, or a lion, I’d be excused for being afraid.

                A cat. One cute, fluffy cat. Silly me.

                Even as a complete stranger, the warm ball of fur was friendly enough to introduce itself, heading gracefully towards where I was formerly rooted. It caressed my legs, rubbing itself against me until I was convinced that it wouldn’t bite. I patted its head and admired its thick coat, not protesting every stroke I brushed its side. I took the cat downstairs together with the diary I found, carrying both with one hand as my other supported my descent down the square hole. I allowed the square entrance to drop in place, sealing the attic once more.

                I was sweating when I came down, realizing that I forgot the flash lamp I put down the floor when I fetched my new pet. I was too lazy to go up again and get it back, having folded the ladder already and laid it to the side.

                I wondered how long the cat was trapped in that dark part of the house, or if it was in a trapped state at all, considering the possibility that the unvisited attic could have been its private goldmine of mice.

                I let its padded feet land the floor of my room for a while as I adored the object in my hand - the diary. Its pages were stained with antiquity as I flipped through them, and it smelled of years of neglect, noticing the discoloration of the paper. It had dates on every entry, and like other compilations of everyday life, each began with the two words:

                Dear diary,

                Reading it would be like relieving the life of whoever wrote it. Judging from the text, the writer’s hand was dexterous, seeing no mistakes despite the impressive cursive handwriting.

                Curious, I started off with the very first entry.