The Crow's Nest 3-9

3-9

            Discombobulated described the attic rubbish heaps AND Mr. Lawyer with team as they crested at the stair top.  I turned from the rubbish to view that group blinking their eyes, peering around and NOT leaving the secure area of the stair top to come… explore… with us.  My partner was already putting on a fine display of false attention to a …pile of junk… back by a lone far window and I, after my …glance… did the same INTO an under the eves and in the dark …rubbish mound.  Leaving that position once I determined the lawyer team would not move I completed a quick …in dim attic light… tally tour of the contents and… made a few marks on my paper JUST as I arrived before Mr. Lawyer.  Putting the paper into my pocket I… LOOKED PAST the law team and spied a wall … of a room… behind them so… stepped right past them to their right to further discover the door to this room.

            The law team turned with me and watched me stop at the room door.  The door was closed.  On the door was a warped, chipped, age toned and brittle sign that had, painted by hand in black ink, the words “THE CROW’S NEST” with five or six small and hand painted in the same black ink crows standing about this title.  I looked at the sign, reached for the door knob, turned it and went into the room.

            Mr. Lawyer followed with the two women behind him.  I stopped just inside the door.  Mr. Lawyer stopped at my right side.  The women could not get into the room.  To my left a window illuminated the whole space.  Before me was the empty room center with an old braided rug on the floor.  Beyond that was a Civil War era cot style bed commonly called a “hired man’s bed” fitted against the back wall.  A Victorian, damaged and NOT valuable. walnut wood and corner fitting knick-knack shelf was to the bed’s left beside the window.  A small bookcase with …old books… on it AND a small 1880’s “ladies” writing desk was against the wall to the left of the window.  Several wooden boxes and old trunks were on the floor and pushed against these.  Those has been ground hogged.  To my right were two more small bookcases also with …old books… on them and more ground hogged boxes on the floor before those.  After glancing over the whole room. including the notice of some old clothes hung here and there. my gaze focused on a BLANK SPOT right next to the head of the bed.

            Having carried the secret lust that I would find THE tea table on this estate exploration the …denoting a blank space… where a tea table could have once rested but that table having been purloined by an earlier visitor… was one of my particular quests TOO soooo to discover a BLANK SPOT where a tea table COULD HAVE BEEN was equal to finding the table soooo …a little too quickly… I stepped to this blank spot and looked down at the floor to determine… that… the little ROUND foot marks left in the dust and as depressions on the rug edge FORMED A SQUARE and not… a tea table size slipper footed rectangle… so WAS NOT where THE tea table had rested before being purloined soooo …resolved very, very quickly that… private panic attack.

            Looking up and turning to face Mr. Lawyer I said “This was Margaret’s room”.

            The two women shuffled and Mr. Lawyer said “This is Margaret’s room?”

            “WAS.  When she was a little girl.  A playroom.  Summer bedroom too I guess” I said gesturing to the bed.  The two women peered past the lawyer toward the bed.  Mr. Lawyer looked around the room, looked down at the trunks to his left.  I… took out my paper, pirouetted at the center of the room, stopped to face Mr. Lawyer, made a few pencil marks on the paper and… stepped through the law team and doorway BACK into the attic TO the stair head and… paused to discern that the law team was following and then… went down the attic stairs.  I heard the law team follow.  I heard someone close The Crow’s Nest door.  I heard my partner follow the law team down the attic stairs as I stood waiting below.