the cellar of regret

I put out the cigaret in the ashtray next to the coffee cup, and look out of the window. My eyes pass over the familiar trees in the garden. It's fall and with nature preparing to die, the leaves have all turned yellow, some of them already lying on the ground. Four apple trees, two cherry and an old pear tree that has a child's swing hanging from it. The rope is old and weathered, the wooden seat has started to go soft and slowly fall apart from the fungus that has taken over. Far away I can see the hills rising just before the earth plummets into the sea.

It is one of these grey days that press on my chest and make it more difficult to breathe. It feels as if the grey clouds moving slowly against the impenetrable curtain of the grey sky, will surround me and suffocate me. I look at the heavy metal clock on the kitchen wall, just past 10am. Time seems endless here, and within these walls ambition feels vain.

I have been watching the days roll by over the hills through this window for the past four years now. I have learned that life moves, and everything moves with it. If you don't move along with life it can brutally leave you just standing there. So I stay in the same spot. I wake up in the morning, I get out of bed, wash, dress, go to work, interact with people, I come back home. Like any normal man. But I am not like you. You laugh, cry, feel joy, sadness. You raise your glass to toast, tell a joke, share your ideas. But I just watch you and I try to copy what you do. I laugh when you laugh, read the paper like you do, follow a conversation you started. I try to blend in, hiding behind mediocracy so that you will not find out that inside me there is nothing. My body should have just caved in years ago because there is nothing inside, no soul, no desire, nothing to hold me up. I am hollow. I don't build up my life inside my head like you do, dream up a future, fill it with beautiful moments. I don't wonder about the weather or plan holidays, for inside my vast emptiness there is no room for that, there is only regret.

Under the table in the kitchen, where I sit, there is a small door in the floor. I drag my foot across it. I like to feel its outline under my feet. The door is just heavy enough so that a small child could not lift it open. It leads to the cellar underneath the house. A ladder takes you down to a small, cold, damp room lined with empty shelves. If it rains and the river next to the house wells up, the cellar floods and the water will come up to my knees.

This door was never supposed to be left open unsupervised. Lili was never supposed to wander into the kitchen on her own. But on one rainy day the cellar flooded again and I went to the shed to fetch a bucket, leaving Lili in the living room by herself. Just for that moment life rushed past so fast, leaving me sitting here now at the kitchen table, adamant to stay behind from the rest of the current. My feet are pressing firmly on this door, waiting for roots to grow and blend in with the wood so that life would just spring up around me, envelop me and leave me here buried inside my own emptiness.

Describe a room

The panelled oak doors, painted to the color of burnt aubergine, lead into a large room with double ceiling height. There are bookcases running along the back wall with a small wooden balcony that splits them into two. An old ornamented spiral staircase made of metal, leads to the balcony of the library and two wooden ladders run along the bookcases, one on each level. Endless rows of books almost obsessively organized by countries, authors and genres, line up on the shelves. All of the books have been read and almost all of them have old bookmarks sticking out from the top. Some old classics lay in piles on the balcony floor, yet to find their place on the shelves. In the middle of the room rests an elaborate silk Persian rug that has seen many years pass and with the years it's vibrant reds and blues have become muted, creating a more subdued scene. A large, bulky sofa of pale grey leather heavily sits on top of the rug, hiding a stitched walnut tree in the rug from the destructive rays of the sun. There is a small round table next to the sofa with some books on top of it, one lays open waiting to be picked up again, and a water carafe with glasses next to it. Two pashminas with traditional Rajashtani embroidery are mindfully thrown over the arms of the sofa, as to make it look like they lay there casually. A tall brass floor lamp with a green glass shade hangs over the sofa, giving light to the absent reader. Opposite the sofa sits a grand chaise of green velvet and mahogany wood, the back of it curving elegantly and accentuating it's claim to the Louis XIV era. Out of place, two shabby armchairs stick out, one with a hole in the back of it, and a wooden coffee table that pull together the sitting area on the rug. There are countless notebooks covering the coffee table, some opened with a pen resting on it, some organized into neat stacks and tied with leather strings. A grand piano sits before the three large french doors, music notes scattered across the top of it. The wooden piano stool has a leather cushion on it for comfort. And the cushion has a deep dent in the middle, left there by the pianist's heavy body sitting on it, making the notes on the papers turn into melodies. The curtains on the french doors are drawn and sunlight washes over the grand room, making the dust particles flying around distinct. The wall of books is safe at the back of the room, untouched by the rays of the afternoon sun. Apple trees outside in the garden cast their long shadows on the Persian rug and furniture, swaying to the rhythm of the wind blowing in from the sea...