Bittersweet
Our family secrets were hidden in the trunk in the basement of our house. I had known about that practically my whole life, yet having to actually go down there, to the scary basement I had never dared enter as a child, to find out those family secrets after my parents’ death was an experience I never would have expected to go through. I had left the cool countryside and my family cottage after reaching the age of 18, left to get better education and a higher quality life. Unlike my siblings, I didn’t visit my parents every couple of weeks. The house they had lived in for their whole lives, it had something wrong, something off about it that sent bad shivers down my spine every time I thought about it. So obviously, I was surprised when I learned about the passing of the very same people that brought me onto this planet, even more surprised when I was made aware of the fact that everything and anything they owned belonged to me… Or at least would belong to me once I had claimed a ring from the trunk in the basement of the house. Our family secrets were hidden in the trunk in the basement of our house, yes, but when I opened the trunk, I learned things that completely changed my outlook on life.
It was a rainy November afternoon when I finally got time off of work to go claim this mysterious ring that I knew nothing about. I was dressed up in a coat that barely kept me warm and some leggings I had mindlessly thrown on in the morning. My hair was quite possibly embarrassingly messy underneath my beanie, but given the fact that nobody was around, I didn’t do anything to fix it even after taking the beanie off.
The old, ivy-covered and made-of-stone cottage had never had a lock on the almost-falling-apart front door;therefore, I faced no challenges about getting into the house. Yes, I faced no challenges on the first step to claiming this ring, yet finding the entrance into the basement was rough enough to cover up for the lack of a lock on the door. Despite the fact that I had spent my entire childhood inside of this house, and despite the fact that I was aware that there was a basement all that time, I seemed to have lost all my knowledge on the way that led to that floor with how much I struggled at finding the way that lead to it.
After an embarrassing hour spent looking around the house, trying to find the entrance, I managed to find the plan of the house hidden behind a loose stone in my parents’ bedroom wall. The plan of the house did not help me mentally, or physically, much to my disappointment, as it revealed the fact that moving the horrendously large wardrobe of my parents’ would be needed in order to get to the staircase leading to the basement. I wasn’t even sure if the wardrobe was meant to be moved, yet I puffed my chest up like birds to when they are trying to appear larger, and I began my struggle of trying to get the wardrobe to move just a meter to the left… Thanks all my suffering and feet sliding on the smooth, light coloured wooden flooring, thanks to all the times my hands slipped across the surface of the wardrobe and caused me to fall, I somehow managed to get the large piece of furniture to move just enough to let me part the door that supposedly led the way to the basement I had been trying to find for hours at that point in time. With one final look to the outside world, to the now-setting sun and the trees getting messed up at the wind blowing angrily at them, I squeezed my body through the gap between the wardrobe and the door.
The staircase leading the way to the basement filled my nose with the scent of damp, perhaps even rotting wood, but I managed to brace myself and keep on going. Step after another step, the way to the basement I had been told to stay away from so manty times as a child got closer to me. Or I got closer to it. The air got heavier the deeper I went, the more steps I took, yet the end never seemed to come. As I started regretting life choices due to the ache that began in my knees, and I began thinking of going back, leaving this place to never come back, the staircase turned into a spiral staircase with wooden steps. The smell of damp was probably soaking into my skin at that point, my hands felt sweaty and my feet aching, but a voice in my head told me to go on, and that it would all be worth it in the end. So, like any other reasonable person would do, I continued my way down the staircase.
After all my struggles, I made my way to another wooden door. Somehow, I could still see and tell some things about my surroundings despite the fact that there was no source of light. Reaching over for the brass door knob, I twisted it and in front of me was a singular, lit torch hung onto the wall… Along with the trunk I had heard so much about throughout my entire life. It all felt too real to be real, yet too fake to be real at the same time. It felt like finishing a game that gave you so much and so little at the same time. It was not like ending a chapter, though, it was like ending a book that I knew would not have a prologue as I reached my hand over to the trunk… It was a scene worthy of a proper slow, instrumental music, something that felt too sweet, too nice to be true yet it all had happened and was coming to a sudden, expected end. Bittersweet… That was the word that explained what it felt like as I opened the trunk and as it all came to an end. With all the struggles and the nights spent crying that I had never learnt to cherish, and with all the time I spent doing things I thought I loved that I never attempted to unheed… Bittersweet, that was the word that finally left my lips as I entered a place I knew I would never come back from. Bittersweet, that was how my whole life had been, and I had never given it the credits…
It all came to an end
I knew it
You knew it
It all would come down to a sudden end
A sudden, unexpected end
So as I took my last breath when I opened the trunk
I finally learnt to close my eyes
To cherish those memories I never cherished
And to despise those moments I had always caressed
So I took my final, final breath
One that I knew would never come to an end
And I opened my eyes for the last time to see where it all would say its final goodbyes
I was alone
Inside a deep, dark area
All alone
Nothing but my bittersweet life
My scars and my memories to accompany me
As I made my way next to those that the world would never see…
