Ah Friday, finally here. I did glare at my alarm this morning, but tonight I can turn it off and just wake up whenever. Of course on days where I can do that I will sleep well and wake early because that is just how those things go. For now, let’s see how the last writing prompt of the week goes shall we? Timers set to fifteen minutes.
I like the possibility of finding family secrets left in the space, especially ass we have one lone family survivor and thus no one to scandalize.
Friday, September 27th: I carefully picked up the cut crystal perfume bottle.
I carefully picked up the cut crystal perfume bottle. It was covered with dust and the smooth glass felt gritty in my hands. I lifted the stopper, wondering if any scent still remained. The scent of lilacs wafted delicately from the bottle. The scent itself had evaporated into a yellow orange discolored spot on the base of the bottle’s interior but there had been that one last trace.
In an instant it was gone, the last breath of scent gone from the spent perfume. I stoppered the bottle and set it back down on the dressing table, feeling vaguely guilty for letting it escape. I rubbed my dusty hands on my jeans. My finger prints were etched on the bottles sides, clean smears in the dusty surface, gleaming evidence of my interest. I fought the urge to wipe them away. I was not a thief. I had the right to be here. In fact I was the only one with the right left.
Sadness replaced guilt.
The last one standing,’ I thought. It was strange. The family had always seemed legion. My great grandparents each had a multitude of siblings as did my grandparents. My parents’ generation was large as well, but that’s where the production line slowed. There were only five children born in my generation. Out of the vast array of aunts and uncles, great Aunts and second cousins, the generations narrowed.
I remembered a sea of elderly relatives with me and my four cousin’s running around. Slowly the sea dried up ass death took them one by one. Most lived to see their age reach triple digits. My parents generation thought they would contribute to the legion. That wasn’t to be. There were car accidents and fires. There was war and disease. And there were only five of us. My cousin Chris was drowned when he was eight and Calvin was killed by a drunk driver when he was ten.
We lost Alice in another car accident when she was seventeen and two years prior Michael died from prostate cancer. Of the five of us, I was the only one left. And now the last of the older generation had gone. I knew Aunt Laura hadn’t been able to go into the upper part of the house for several years. Every time I visited, she asked me to check on things. I did the quick pas through. I asked if she wanted be to hire someone to go through the upper floor, bringing things down for her perusal so she could decide what to keep and what to let go. She had no desire to do so and claimed she had all she needed in the few rooms she bothered to occupy on the first floor.
I asked if she wanted me to get someone in to at least dust the upper floor and she was horrified by the notion. A cleaner on the first floor was fine, but as she could no longer remember what was on the upper floor and had no way to check anything, she didn’t want to risk it. I asked if she was worried about theft, but she seemed more worried that the cleaner would simply go upstairs and sit, claiming to clean but doing nothing since it couldn’t be checked. Aunt Laura didn’t worry about theft, she worried about paying or a service she couldn’t check on.
Ten til Midnight 