The year was 1986. My home, a typical home in Suburbia, USA. My life, a typical American teenager, filled with angst and dissatisfaction at my lot in life. Little did I realize how that life would soon change.
The summer of my sixteenth year was hot and humid, as most summers were in sunny Florida. My car was an old Chevy with the cloth interior roof held up by thumbtacks, the best I could afford on the money I saved working nights after school at the local movie theatre. Weekends I'd drive to my boyfriend's house, past the streetwalkers trying...
My grandma had this incredible house. Like one of the ones you see in movies. Like, this is going to be a really crazy example, but did you ever see "The Tigger Movie"? Like Winnie the Pooh. There's this part where they're in the attic and I always remember wishing we had an attic with all that cool old stuff to explore in our house. Then I found Grandma's attic and I knew I'd hit something special! There was actually a stand-up mirror covered in a sheet and a few large trunks full of old clothes! So great.
I think...
Ruby looked out the window and couldn't help but smiling. She was probably much more excited for the first day of school than Ella! The sweet clean little tennis shoes, new notebooks and pencils, pictures by the bus and the classroom door of her little girl in a too-big back pack, even the tears and constant missing, all of it seemed exciting to Ruby. It meant Ella was growing up, and though it hurt beyond description, Ruby was so excited for all of the beautiful new experiences the world was opening up for her little girl.
"Mom?" Ruby turned and...
The alligator with the cardboard mouth. The whipped cream on the stairs. Hollow clang. Syncopated clatter.
The brighter colors remind me of childhood. Not that adulthood has been faded yellows or softening greys. But a luminescent green or radiant orange triggers my primary nostalgia.
The set is bare. The slice of bread reads 5 in ketchup. A lazy harmonica.
When time runs out here, it starts over there. Follow the alligator king.
The disco ball was turning. That was the first indication that something was wrong. That disco ball hadn't moved since 1982, when his brother put it up in his parent's attic to make room for his Tattoo You poster. The disco ball had hung for 30 years from a four-by-four, good solid wood. ("That wood ain't going anywhere, his dad once told him. That's old country wood, original American oak. Before all this," and let a wave of his hand tell the rest.)
He was up there in the attic when the disco ball turned, revealing it's multi-faced mirrored squares,...