My Last Bedroom

I grew up deep in the country, in a Victorian house. I stayed in a room in one of the severe, steep gabled roof, in what was once the servant's quarters. I had chosen it myself, at one point, because it was the furthest away from my parents. Oh, they were kind enough, but they were gone so often and it broke my little heart to see them in a constant state of unpacking and repacking for their next safari, mountaineering expedition, or sea voyage. I was left under the stern but caring eye of the butler, Mr. Rohan, the young cheerful cook, Miss Ada, and the wise old gardener, Tomohiro. 

Mr. Rohan was clean-shaven, broad-shouldered and tall, with alert, grey eyes, and the faintest touch of grey creeping into the temples of his black hair. Every so often, he would allow me to follow along as he attended to the myriad demands of running the household. I would later learn that this was unheard of, and now I think Mr. Rohan was both caring and shrewd. He knew that I was a lonely child, and he knew that if I developed a sense of all the effort it took to keep our home warm, happy, and peaceful, that I would would also begin to be feel responsible for it. Less likely to cause a mess, at least.

Miss Ada was my favorite. She had come to us from a town at the edge of the Black Forest in Germany, and would bake Lebkuchen for the two of us. They reminded me of gingerbread, but tasted better. She said it reminded her of home. I told her I wished I had something that reminded me of home, and she laughed. She would let me sit on the counter and watch her cook, and sometimes she would even sing German opera. They all had funny names, and I couldn't understand the words, but my favorites were from "Die Fledermaus," and "Der Freischütz". I would help scrub the pots and pans while she sang.  

The gardener, Tomohiro, had been a monk. I don't know if that was his first or last name. He said he had left the monastery because all the  meditation and prayer got in the way of his gardening. He would say things that sounded very somber, but he had this way of laughing with his eyes. And we had the most beautiful garden. In one corner of the grounds, he even planted sunflowers, which were not in the detailed plans my parents had laid out, but he knew they were my favorite. If my parents ever noticed them, they never said anything. I would run out to check on my sunflowers throughout the day and marvel at how they turned to follow the sun. 

That was my life, until just after my parents had gone to Tunisia for the winter to celebrate their tenth wedding anniversary. The day after their arrival, Miss Ada had fallen ill. By the end of the week, the plague had both Mr. Rohan and Tomohiro, and I was all alone.

My parents never came back. But I'm okay. The house has never fallen into disrepair, and there is always something to eat waiting for me on the kitchen counter when I wake up. The layout of the garden bears no trace of the straight and narrow rows of my parent's original design, but it still healthy and beautiful. Every day, I walk its forking paths until I end up in the little corner of the grounds that has my sunflowers.

They are big, and golden, and I still love looking at them. But they don't move anymore.

 Every night, I go back to my little room in the attic and sleep. And when I dream, I see Mr. Rohan, Miss Ada, and Tomohiro, and they tell me I'm a good boy, and they tell me all sorts of stories. I don't understand most of them, and some don't even have proper endings.

So I thought I'd write them all down. That's what this collection has been. I don't know what's going to happen to me. I guess it depends on whoever is writing my story.

But I've got my pen, and I've got my paper, and I've learned a lot from my collection of stories. Maybe I could write my own story. It would be about a good boy who is loved, and is happy, and isn't all alone. 

And his flowers would still follow the sun.

THE END

Author's Note: I set up my writing desk again. The vast majority of the previous stories were written on my phone, and my pudgy thumbs led to many interesting spelling errors. This is certainly different; sitting at a desk. Just like old times, I suppose. Certainly easier to research. 

This was  a blank page story, and of course it got quite melancholy. Still, I think there's hope for the protagonist. Nobody wanted to be in that house, and he was loved, but not by who he expected. Reading back now, I guess there a few different interpretations, and I can tell you that I don't know which one is correct! I was just writing down what I observed, but I don't know what happened, if that conveys the sense of things.

Maybe he's being cared for by the ghosts of his former caretakers, granted a reprieve from heaven or hell while they care for him. Maybe he's been doing the cooking, and caring for the house, and the gardening, based on what he learned, and he doesn't realize it. The sunflowers are a clue, but if he's an unreliable narrator...all bets are off, right? Maybe the boy is a different kind of ghost too, because in a way he always was before. Or there's more there that I'm not seeing right now, because writing this story made me sad and all my interpretations at this point are likely to skew lugubrious. There's hope, I think, at the end. Hearing enough stories, good or bad, can inspire you to write your own. 

Because as you can see, I have no idea what I'm doing but I seem to manage somehow.

"I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I'll go to it laughing." -Stubb, from Moby Dick by Herman Melville.

Goodnight; I love you all.