The Creaks of Age

The turned over wastepaper basket wheezed a thousand tiny delicious squeaks as he eased himself down slowly for a moment's repose. A multitude of weaved wooden fibres rubbing together noisily, vibrating pleasantly underneath him as he shifted into a more comfortable groove. His makeshift chair, the sounds it emitted, it all came to him in the form of perfect metaphors.

The creaks of age, the passing of time, the beauty and strength of a well crafted basket, an old man crafted by time, toughened by endurance, whittled and woven by the wounds and scars of a long life lived.

He creaked and squeaked in his own way, but he was strong. Yes, his body was weathered and shaky, but there was a strange power within which pulsed heavily inside him. A power of resilience.

Indeed, he was in a deeply ponderous and philosophical state of mind this morning.

Anything from the sounds of an upturned paper basket to the glinting of the sun in his bedroom window would send him spinning into a dreamy state of thought. He'd spent fifteen minutes staring at a crack in the bathroom mirror with a foamy toothbrush hanging out his mouth, until his Fatoumata had whisked him downstairs , chastising him busily in soft Bambara about his breakfast getting cold. He didn't speak a word of Bambara, after 40 years he'd never bothered to learn, but after 15 years of being chastised daily by Fatoumata, he understood everything she said, without understanding a word.

Through the wide open window the sky looked like rain. He raised his eyebrows in acknowledgement,  knowing that it was best if his work was started with vigour. Aware that a downpour now, in his current reflective state would have him spinning into a daydream till dinnertime. Rain always stirred old emotions. A fragment of memory contained in each droplet, a downpour of nostalgia like that would send him drifting aimlessly and occupy all attentions till being brought bumping back to the present by Fatoumata. Motivated by this fear of an angry Malian housemaid, furious at him for not clearing up his office as he'd promised to do, he raised himself from the basket, trying his best to ignore the spray of noises it sent after him. He focused his attentions on the old wooden chest in the corner, his next task.

Two piles, she'd said, one for things you want to keep, one for things you want to throw away. Don't hoard and don't spend too long thinking about it, just pick an item up, detach yourself, and decide. An impossible request considering his current state of mind, but he accepted the odds of his failure and moved to open the box, letting all the guilt, shame, doubt and desires to cease wash over him without effect. These thoughts had no effect on his actions anymore. He had the power to be impartial to his own emotions. That was the gift old age had given him, a wisdom beyond passion. He knew himself so intimately that his heart's desires could be anticipated, predicted, accepted and ignored. There was an amazing calmness to his being, because he allowed himself to live in the past. That is where he loved and cried, the present was merely where he existed. An engaged audience member, watching the passing of his own life flickering before him. His daily life was a doorway to the past. The future as well, bore no relevance, since he played so little an active part in its formation, and so it ceased to exist for him, completely.

The old wooden chest creaked open with a satisfying groan, like a body stretching out after years of lying asleep. It must have been decades since he'd opened this box, he couldn't even recall what he'd kept in it, a mystery box then. His brow wrinkled in thought, the box itself was a mystery. It was his father's chest, and had travelled with him from Hardfordshire. It was a heavy wooden trunk, of black mahogany, beautifully crafted. Sturdy joinings held together eternally by thick nails, the heads smoothened over time. Beautifully crafted yes, but still, out of place in the victorian manor he had grown up in. As a child, the chest had always grabbed his attention. It was so dark and solid and practical, at odds entirely with the light detailed ornaments and furniture which decorated the living room in an enormous array of vulgar quantity, such was the fashion of the time.

His mother once had asked the maid to have it removed. Later, when his father bumped into the three footmen who were struggling to manoeuvre the chest down the hallway, he sternly barked for them to put it back where they had found it. His father, who by all accounts was not a man heavily involved with the interior decorating of the manor, was strongly in passion over the issue. "Would allow a lumbering cow to roam in a field of gentle ponies?" his mother had shot at his father later, "the chest stays" was the curt reply, solid and firm, nothing more needed to be said, that was that, the chest stayed.

He never knew and nor would he ever know exactly what it was about the chest which made it so important to his father. Perhaps it wasn't the chest at all, perhaps it was just a display of dominance, in order to affirm and establish his position as controller and master of the house. Or perhaps there was something about the chest in particular. Did it hold some great sentimental value to his father? Whatever it was, the answer was lost and swallowed by time.

But this too, like all things, he accepted with a shrugging resilience of experience. There had been so many unanswered mysteries over the years, so many stories unended, strings left untied, disappointment was no longer a feature. His lust for new knowledge had dissipated entirely. All he had left was a tendency for speculation, which he had concluded long ago, was much more enjoyable than the banality of truth.

The chest was a gift from a past lover, it was a patriarchal heirloom, it was the chest which had held his old military uniform during his soldiering days, it was a chest made during his youth when he had a romantic interest in carpentry.

Speculation was indeed more enjoyable than a confirmation of tedious quality. The chest was old though, that much he knew, far older than he, though it seemed an impossible thing, that something could have existed longer than he. Sometimes he felt so old that he was sure that he had always existed, that time and his consciousness were two parallels which had begun in the same jolt of life, and would fizzle out in the same moment too. But this box was old, he had to admit to himself, far older than he, and in being that, far older than most things that were.