Keith’s Attic

I’ve fallen behind on Writing 101, but fortunately they give you the weekend off so I can catch up by posting Thursday’s assignment today and doing Friday’s assignment tomorrow.

Thursday’s task was to write a post inspired by a picture. We were given a choice of four and I chose the one below. As I usually write a short story around this time of the week I decided I’d do that for this task.

So it’s all worked out quite well really…

Keith’s Attic

There were no secret treasures in Keith’s attic. He knew this because he had put everything in there himself.

He bought the house with Claire in the early eighties. It was a starter home, not really big enough for the two of them, let alone the family they were going to have together. But getting on the housing ladder had seemed important so they’d purchased the first mid-terrace they could afford.

At the time it was on a rather soulless estate in one of the less ‘desirable’ parts of town. Now, just around the corner was a fashionable wine bar, an expensive delicatessen and the branch of a well known high-street coffee chain. All were apparent indications that the estate was very much ‘on the up’. That may have been the case, but Keith missed his Sunday pint in the old pub that had made way for these developments.

Still, it was one of the less painful changes that Keith had gone through in the last thirty years. On reflection, he acknowledged that being able to get a nice cup of coffee might not be the worst thing in the world.

As he climbed into the loft, he was struck by just how much stuff he had managed to cram into the small space. It was particularly impressive because most of it was his and his alone.

There had been no family, because after the first two years there had been no Claire.

He bore her no ill-will. He genuinely hoped she had found whatever it was that he couldn’t offer her.

And he’d kept the house. She’d left him that much.

Although other residents (some more temporary than others) had come and gone over the years, Keith had been the only constant.

Now there was Sandra, and with Sandra things were different. For Sandra, Keith was prepared to make some space, so three decades of accumulated junk needed to be sorted through.

The attic’s itinerary included bin bags full of old clothes, boxes of old files and containers of kitchen utensils. There was an old VHS recorder that Keith had kept, certain that the DVD ‘fad’ wouldn’t catch on. There was also a box of video tapes that he had long since replaced after accepting that the ‘fad’ had, in fact, caught on.

Amid the clutter, Keith located a box that he couldn’t quite identify. It must have been one of his first deposits in the upper-floor stockpile.

He opened it. Moments later tears were rolling down his cheeks as the memories came flooding back.

There were no secret treasures in Keith’s attic but there were some treasures that he’d forgotten.