ATTIC REFLECTION

I went up to the attic, no longer a pumpkin-headed brat, but a dreamy old man in his thirties. The diagonally sloping wooden staircase really shook me. A dank, deathly smell hit my olfactory senses. As if darkness were a silent enemy rather than a comforting friend. I piled my old literary volumes, albeit not in alphabetical order, next to the draughty, solid brick walls, where a large reaper spider was dreamily weaving a web to reawaken my fears.

Increasingly, I trust the everyday, well-worn routines more than anything else, I can feel them: they will not lead me astray, and perhaps they never will! As if we need each other. For me, to be able to reflect with common sense, for them, to get rid of centuries of dust.

To look so godlike beneath the concrete, bricks, and structure of the roof. As if I were in the spiny belly of a whale, from which the only sure way out is down. I shouldn't stumble on the cursed, much-lost memories of my childhood with my clumsy feet; the little broken truck that had to be lifted with a tiny silver-plated wrench, the snail that chased me in spiral circles, still lurking in the corner, calling to me. A fat rat or two, like a lively rodent survivor, watches from the darkness, perhaps waiting for food, prey. In the attic, in the conscious solitude, the inequalities seem to be levelled out, the trials of fate suppressed.

Grandmother cleaned up so well that the attic just sparkled! They might as well sleep in it; the warm duvet and duvet covers and cushions make every level of comfort cosy and comfortable. I return to the safety of the mother earth after an hour or more on creaking stairs. It's like walking in dark space, a million stars watching over my life...