A very nice man sat with me in the baby room, holding my hand and looking down at an empty womb. I didn't understand why it was called a baby room when there was no baby and it was so spartan. I didn't know who he was, except that he seemed to love me very much. Around the edges of the room there were colours and lights, indicating thoughts of decorating.
I examined the room and my deep bond with this strange man whom I couldn't recognise. Although I couldn't grasp anything he said, I understood that I was his and that he was the nicest person I knew. Not that I knew anyone else. But it was nice to know someone nice.
I glanced at random photographs that were scattered across the walls, unable to remember why I would capture those moments in a snapshot. Were they important?
There was the nice man, reading in a tree. There he was when I watched him train in a gym. There he was camouflaged amongst the background while he snuck up on me. There he was teaching me to paint. There he was protecting me. He stood up for me. Fed me. Watched over me. Hmm, it looked like he was pretty important in my life.
I followed the photo trail and then paused at the blank wall where the photos trailed off. I had the strangest feeling that there was a door. A hidden door, perhaps. But to find and open the door, I needed a key. A trigger.
Feeling the wall over with my hands and kicking at it, the man watched me for a moment and then helped. He was the one who found the hidden mechanism.
The door rotated open and what cascaded out in a flood were frustrated shards of emotions that had been suppressed and compressed. Now they had strewn themselves all across the floor like a flood, heaving as if struggling to multiply. Disgusting. Dirty. It was a mess that needed to be cleaned up or we wouldn't be able to move. The nice man helped me to brave the flood and then pick me up from amongst them.
He looked sad and tears trickled down his cheeks, making my chest ache for him. I touched his tears with some confusion and curiosity. He hugged me tight and put me down where the flood of emotions were shallower. Then squatting down, he began helping me with the tedious process of packing and filing them away. I watched for a while and then saw the pattern in his filing and how the emotions could be dealt with. It was a drudgery of work and took a long time.
It was strange. I knew they were my emotions, and yet I was removed from them as if they were not mine. I couldn't feel them. It was like I was numb and impervious to them. As if they belonged to someone else.
Once the emotions had been dealt with, we could finally enter the messy hidden room. Things were haphazard, unorganised and scattered as if everything had been upended in a hurry. It was exactly like how I expected a single person who had no care for anyone else might leave their house when they didn't have to keep anything neat for anybody. There were junk food packets, empty bottles, dirty laundry and muddy shoes. What kind of slob lived in here?
Just when I thought the tedious work of dealing with emotions was over, there was more work to do. We cleaned up the trash and washed the entire place down, filing and organising things as we went. There was grime, oil and soot on some walls. When it was all done, this hidden room appeared to be a bedroom of some sort. A very utilitarian one.
It seemed that the bedroom owner didn't really care about herself or her own comfort. She just did the absolute necessary and ignored the rest. She had done very little to decorate. Everything looked very plain. So plain and boring it was almost painful. How little did this person care about herself or how other people saw her?
The nice man sat on the now exposed little bed. All the sheets were the same dull grey. He put his face in his hands after looking around the room, putting a hand to his chest every now and then as if he was in pain. I couldn't understand why. It wasn't like this was his bedroom. Despite being so bare, it was definitely a girl's room. A strange girl's room that was absent of any personalisation. How little did she care? Why was she so perfunctory?
There were no photos or colours of soft toys or even books to tell us a little about what the owner of the room was like. Nothing to tell us what she liked or what her hobbies might be.
Exploring the room further, I found only a few changes of old clothes in the wardrobe, all moth eaten and threadbare. Those were no longer wearable and so I decided to throw them out. Nobody could wear those clothes anymore. The nice man agreed with me, imagining up colourful, pretty clothes to fill the wardrobe instead.
The desk was tiny and the chair uncomfortable. How long had it been since all these had been made? They had been made for a very small child and looked broken. Full of splinters. It'd be dangerous to use things that looked on the verge of collapse. I decided to throw them out. The bed looked lumpy and uncomfortable. The mattress had gone flat without any softness. There were dips and bumps in odd places. Who would want to lie there? I threw the bed out. We would need a new one.
With the bed gone, we found a trapdoor where it had been. Opening the trapdoor, we found a dark stairway with a dank, horrible smell coming out from below. Both the nice man and I grimaced. Holding hands, we braved the dark.
Attempts to make a light to show the way failed repeatedly. They kept going out. In the end, the nice man held my hand and we took the steps one at a time.
Until the nice man stepped on air and fell, pulling me with him. He hugged me to him while we fell in the dark, landing with a squelch in what smelled like filth.
The nice man struggled free and pulled me out of the horrible stinky, squelchy stuff.
The nice man made another attempt to bring light to this dark space. It flashed for a moment, long enough to show us chained memories that strained at the walls, bulging here and there in a grotesque manner. The nice man and I hugged each other for a moment after the light had faded.
It was a prison. A prison of the most horrible of the horrible monster memories. No wonder they were locked up down here in the dark. The nice man and I took a few tentative steps. Chains rattled, making us leap back in panic, only to bump against something that immediately leaned over to envelop us, pulling us tight in, so that we fell straight into a foul memory.
I screamed and fought to break free but the memory dragged me in deeper. The only thing I could do before I was completely drowned in the memory was to throw the nice man free. He didn't belong here.
Moments later, the nice man strode back in, wearing a protective suit and helmet of shining armour. With effort and determination, he snatched me back from the awful memory and the man who was doing horrible things to me and carried me out step by step. At the edge of the memory, we fought against the chains trying to trap us in and somehow, the nice man pulled me out with him.
We knelt on our hands and knees, both of us gasping for air at the same time as retching and vomiting after having escaped that oppressive memory. I felt queasy and sick.
The nice man hugged me tight, burying his head in my neck for a long moment. I could feel his tears dripping and his breath tickling, but I didn't feel adverse to his closeness. He probably felt as horrified as I did about the memory. The atmosphere of that place was like a sticky goo that clung to my chest. It was hard to dispel the dreadful feeling and atmosphere that had pervaded that particular memory.
The nice man finally managed to catch his breath and to get a hold of himself. He took a few deep breaths and then in a deep voice, he spoke commanding words of power, calling upon a power from on high.
A warm breeze swept through the dark basement and a light appeared from above. A Man, wrapped in light and surrounded by a soothing, warm wind came down the steps. I recognised Him. I knew Him. I was sure I did.
What was His name again?
He spoke and the warm breeze, carrying the light whooshed through the basement room, revealing everything that had been hidden in the dark. Seeing everything brought to the light made me feel extremely sick again and I leaned over to throw up several times more.
Red blood, like a tide, washed through the room, carrying all the filth away. The blood, exuding a presence that spoke of sacrifice and a covenant, washed over me as well. For a moment, I gaped in surprise, feeling so much better.
Clean water swirled and flushed the room and me with it. When the blood and water was gone, what was left was a fire. A fire that burned the chained memories into shrunken charcoal versions of themselves that could now be picked up and filed without harm. The Man and the nice man helped me with the filing, smiling at me or giving me a hug while I trailed behind them with bewilderment.
Rooms and basements weren't meant to be cleaned like that. I was sure of it. And yet they had somehow gone and done it.
I eventually sat down, rubbing my head and trying to understand what had just happened. I felt people pass by me, sometimes patting my head or giving me a hug when they passed by. When I raised my head again, I realised that renovations had taken place while I hadn't been paying attention. Windows had been installed, along with skylights, filling the basement with a warm glow.
There were carpets and paintings on the walls with a floral theme. A comfortable lounge suite and coffee table had been brought in. A study area had been installed with bookshelves and an empty wall titled the prayer wall had been set up. The stairs had been repaired.
The basement which had been a fearful and dirty place before, had become a bright and warm place. It was more than I deserved.
That's right, I realised. The owner of this place was me. I was the dirty slob of an owner. How embarrassing and shameful that people had seen that side of me.