One day, I decided to clean out the spiderwebs behind my dresser. Armed with a dust cloth and a rolled up piece of paper, and armored in a disintegrating t-shirt and geriatric sweatpants, I peered into the gap between the bureau and the wall. As expected, fluffy gray cobwebs hung down like curtains to obscure the space. I hadn’t realized how much stuff had fallen back there.
Close to the end where I knelt on the ground, I could see a few lost socks, a filthy panda eraser, and a piece of glow-in-the-dark track for a toy car. These were mere outriders though, scouting the way for the army of neglected geegaws piled behind them. A thick coating of dust fell over everything, but all the way back in the corner I could see something glittering. Even through the dimness brought by years of darkness and untouched dirt it shone with a vivid hue, although I couldn’t place my finger on exactly what color it was.
After waving my roll of paper in front of me like a wand to cut away the webs and clear out any eight-legged guests, I began to make my way methodically through the mess. The late afternoon sun wandering in by my window was soon able to fall upon a small stuffed rabbit. It had been my favorite when I was very young, a gift from my grandmother to welcome me into the world. I had cast it by the wayside after my first year at sleepaway camp, when I decided I was too old to need a stuffed animal. The rabbit was followed by two tokens for a game I hadn’t played since my cousin moved away, an origami bird that I had received on the top of a birthday present, and three more socks from back when I could still be convinced to wear hot pink — a casualty of my second grade rebellion against all things “girly”. They sat on top of an old science fair poster, which carried my name next to that of a friend I hadn’t spoken to since elementary school. Though the pile was now considerably smaller, I couldn’t seem to make out the mystery object any better than before. In fact, it seemed to have moved farther away. Still, it gleamed in the crevice like a prism or the skin of a perfectly ripe orange, reminding me of the stories I used to drink in when I still believed that magic could be real. I was now determined to reach it. Cleaning my room had become secondary.
Scooting the dresser away from the wall to improve my reach, I proceeded to shuffle out clutter by the armful, tossing old postcards from a long-neglected penpal over my shoulder with little regard for the disorganized trail I was leaving behind me. Interesting rocks which I had picked up on a million vacations, which seemed to magically transmute into clutter as soon as they reached my bedroom, clattered on the hardwood floor. The strange whatever-it-was continued to elude me, and I could swear it receded before my eyes as I moved towards it. Making one last attempt, I bypassed the rest of the clutter entirely, and lunged forward with my hand out to grasp it.
I knew instantly from the feeling of warmth between my fingers that I had caught it. Slowly, as I pulled it out into the room and saw it in the sunlight, I remembered.
Clutched in my hand was a perfect world. It wasn’t a shining science fiction utopia, or a miraculous far away place; it was just very small. The surface wasn’t one solid color, but many, changing between the red-orange of autumn leaves, the unnatural purple of a grape flavored lollipop, and the bright, chipped green of a plastic dinosaur. Days were long and bright, beginning at sunrise, and nights were a place of daring disobedience at being “up past bedtime”. No place was too narrow to crawl into, no puddle too shallow to splash in. It wasn’t really all that different from the real world, or all that remarkable. A child might live in it. I certainly had. As I watched it faded away, defying all my attempts to hold it tightly. At last, it vanished completely, leaving me sitting in a pile of dusty, faded memories.
Close to the end where I knelt on the ground, I could see a few lost socks, a filthy panda eraser, and a piece of glow-in-the-dark track for a toy car. These were mere outriders though, scouting the way for the army of neglected geegaws piled behind them. A thick coating of dust fell over everything, but all the way back in the corner I could see something glittering. Even through the dimness brought by years of darkness and untouched dirt it shone with a vivid hue, although I couldn’t place my finger on exactly what color it was.
After waving my roll of paper in front of me like a wand to cut away the webs and clear out any eight-legged guests, I began to make my way methodically through the mess. The late afternoon sun wandering in by my window was soon able to fall upon a small stuffed rabbit. It had been my favorite when I was very young, a gift from my grandmother to welcome me into the world. I had cast it by the wayside after my first year at sleepaway camp, when I decided I was too old to need a stuffed animal. The rabbit was followed by two tokens for a game I hadn’t played since my cousin moved away, an origami bird that I had received on the top of a birthday present, and three more socks from back when I could still be convinced to wear hot pink — a casualty of my second grade rebellion against all things “girly”. They sat on top of an old science fair poster, which carried my name next to that of a friend I hadn’t spoken to since elementary school. Though the pile was now considerably smaller, I couldn’t seem to make out the mystery object any better than before. In fact, it seemed to have moved farther away. Still, it gleamed in the crevice like a prism or the skin of a perfectly ripe orange, reminding me of the stories I used to drink in when I still believed that magic could be real. I was now determined to reach it. Cleaning my room had become secondary.
Scooting the dresser away from the wall to improve my reach, I proceeded to shuffle out clutter by the armful, tossing old postcards from a long-neglected penpal over my shoulder with little regard for the disorganized trail I was leaving behind me. Interesting rocks which I had picked up on a million vacations, which seemed to magically transmute into clutter as soon as they reached my bedroom, clattered on the hardwood floor. The strange whatever-it-was continued to elude me, and I could swear it receded before my eyes as I moved towards it. Making one last attempt, I bypassed the rest of the clutter entirely, and lunged forward with my hand out to grasp it.
I knew instantly from the feeling of warmth between my fingers that I had caught it. Slowly, as I pulled it out into the room and saw it in the sunlight, I remembered.
Clutched in my hand was a perfect world. It wasn’t a shining science fiction utopia, or a miraculous far away place; it was just very small. The surface wasn’t one solid color, but many, changing between the red-orange of autumn leaves, the unnatural purple of a grape flavored lollipop, and the bright, chipped green of a plastic dinosaur. Days were long and bright, beginning at sunrise, and nights were a place of daring disobedience at being “up past bedtime”. No place was too narrow to crawl into, no puddle too shallow to splash in. It wasn’t really all that different from the real world, or all that remarkable. A child might live in it. I certainly had. As I watched it faded away, defying all my attempts to hold it tightly. At last, it vanished completely, leaving me sitting in a pile of dusty, faded memories.