Time Standing Still
We have a spare bedroom that is seldom used. Several years ago, I found a table that reminded me of a piece of furniture that a kid might have acquired back in the late 1950’s. I put the table under the room’s single window, which sits, recessed, in a small dormer. I then found a desk lamp from the same era and, following that, a Baby Ben wind-up alarm clock, just like the hand-me-down clocks that I got from my dad. To complete the scene, I added first an Echophone EC-1B (my first shortwave receiver) and later, I replaced the Echophone with a decent looking Hallicrafters S-85 (my second receiver, which was, at the time, my pride and joy). I then placed a home-made short-wave listener’s “logbook” on the table, put an old round doily under the lamp and arranged things to my liking. All of this occurred more than ten years ago …
Occasionally, I’ll step into that room, close the door behind me … just to look. The room never changes. The smell is a bit stale, like most closed-up rooms. My gaze falls immediately on that table … I imagine that it belongs to some kid from the late 1950’s … and that it quietly waits for him to come in from school …
He will never come … but that can’t keep me from hoping that he does …