The Third Room

...continued from My Sixty-Twenty window

You don't notice the dead leaving when they really choose to leave you. You're not meant to. At most you feel them as a whisper or the wave of a whisper undulating down. I would compare it to a woman in the back of a lecture hall or theatre whom no one notices until she slips out. Then only those near the door themselves...notice. To the rest it is like an unexplained breeze in a closed room.
- Alice Sebold, The Lovely Bones (2002)

Clive's back ached as he bent over to sweep up more shards of books and old papers which had somehow found their way into the most obscure corners of the room. His lithe black skin glistened with sweat in the hot October weather. To him this was as much of a necessary domestic chore as it was a mission to exorcise the personal demons which had hovered over his family for the past sixteen years, casting long dark shadows over whatever secrets they guarded in the mysterious Third Room.

In a few weeks, the house would again be filled with the sounds of laughter. Sue, their father's first child, was getting married; bringing genuine cause for celebration. This was perhaps the most significant event since the man's death sixteen years ago. Preparations were in top gear to sort out the traditional asó ébí clothing, catering, drinks, hall decorations, music, chauffeurs and bridal train. Clive mentally ticked the ever growing to-do list off in his head. It was bound to get busy in the flat very soon. Guests were expected from far afield. "As if the place wasn't cramped enough", he thought. There was only one place to put them though...the Third Room! It was no 'room with a view' but it would have to do. The lot had fallen to him to clean it out.

No one remembers what it looked like before it became known as 'the Third Room'. In those days, the children were small and young enough to share bunk beds in one room and so the Third Room was regarded as additional storage space for broken toys, elementary school books, old clothes and an occasional play area for hide and seek games.

The games ceased the day a truck pulled up in front of the house laden with possessions no one needed let alone knew what to do with. These were their father's books, his work things, his clothes and furniture from the new flat in the shiny capital city where he had been setting up a new home for them. The planned relocation never happened because one day the man was and then suddenly the fates cruelly ruled, and he was no more.

As Clive reflected on the events which transpired the day the truck pulled up, he remembered the jaded look on their mother's face as she directed the movers to store father's things in the Third Room. He and his sisters looked on curiously as their mom shut the door to the room and forbade them in solemn tones never to disturb its peace. It was as if Death had come to make its dwelling among the living. Like the tomb of a pharaoh, no one ventured in for fear of unsettling the spirits which lived within. From time to time, mice would find their way into the flat. After furtive attempts to evade capture, they usually ended up sneaking into the Third Room through the little gap under the door. No one bothered to go in after them for it was almost certain that they would never be seen again. Death claimed the rodents just as it had claimed the man whose possessions they dared trespass against.

The years passed and life slowly assumed a semblance of normalcy. Whatever lay behind the door to the Third Room was lost in mystery. One hot sweaty afternoon, the air-conditioning broke and someone remembered that a whole unit lay idle in the Third Room. It prompted a long discussion between him and his sisters about why perfectly useful furniture was being allowed to waste when it could be put to good use. When their mom returned that night, the kids presented their argument to her and strangely enough, she agreed they could go and check out the available option in the room.

The door creaked on its hinges as they pushed through to reveal the memories that had been painfully shut up many years since. The light bulb was long dead so someone lit a candle. The low yellow flame cast long eerie shadows along the walls as one by one they silently filed in. The kids held their breath as they watched the expression on their mom's face. Expecting a flood of tears, they were taken aback when she cheerily set the pace and began to explore. The woman had finally found a way to deal with the painful memories of her late husband. Sometimes the best way to deal with fear or pain is to confront them. This may be as simple (or as difficult) as stepping through doors that have remained closed for one reason or another.

This first step was the beginning of many visits to the room. The Third Room became a museum-cum-library-cum-refuge. You went there to sit and think, to pick up and read a dusty and dated volume from the piles of books/papers or simply to hide from the world and cry. "It still remained a dump though", Clive thought as he began cleaning out the rubbish that everyone had somehow continued to throw in there.

As he picked his way through the rubble, deciding what to salvage and what to destroy, he tried to piece together the forgotten years and wondered how different life would have turned out had the man been alive. Pity he would never know. Sometimes there are things we don't need to know; impossible thoughts that were best left alone. The fates may have robbed them of potentially life changing experiences but one thing was certain, there were many better ones to come.

Death had come like an unexplained breeze and had trapped time and memory in the Third Room. As Clive’s muscular arms wrestled the last window open, to ventilate the room, he felt like he had finally set them free.