Something Insignificant

A paper made to convey my feelings about a situation that seemed insignificant. Written for my creative writing class.

Silence, it’s ringing in my ear. It’s captivating my being, scooping me up into a vortex of absolute solitude. Everyone’s long gone, off to work or school. I still have thirty minutes before I have to start heading for my bus stop. My eyes sweep across the dimly lit living room. The light is barely peering over the clouds, it only adds to my calm atmosphere. I sit in my dad’s leather chair, letting it rock me back and fourth for a moment. I am pondering whether I should turn the TV on or not, but decide against it. I like this rare bit of silence.

As if on cue, the rain begins to pitter patter against the house. I close my eyes in deep thought. I am allowing all of my troubles to wash away with the rain. Why should I go to school today? There would be no point in it. Everyone has already gone to work; it would be so easy to skip. I, then, realize that I have a test today and must go. A sigh escapes my lips as I heave my body from the comfortable chair. I still have fifteen minutes before I have to leave.

I begin to shuffle through my back pack, searching for my headphones and Ipod. I only come across the Ipod. Where would my headphones be? I come to the conclusion that I don’t have enough time to hunt for them so I go into my parent’s bedroom to borrow my dad’s extra pair. I open the little cabinet on top of his chest of drawers and start to rummage through that. I was just about to give up when my eyes caught a bundle of papers hiding beneath some of my dad’s work papers. I come to realize that it is in my handwriting, only when I was younger. I pull the bundle out, unfolding the many pages. It’s a story I wrote when I was in the seventh grade.

I had completely forgotten about it. The memories all seemed to hit me at once. I had entered the story in a contest and won first place. In fact, it was a Halloween Story contest. My hands began to shake as I stared down at my handwriting. He had kept it all this time? Most of the time my writings, drawings, art work, etc. went into this box full of memories, but this… it went into his drawer. What makes it so different? What made it different from the rest? I was feeling so many things at once. I could barely clue in on any specific emotion.

I looked back at the clock; I still have ten minutes. I put the bundle back where I had found it only to come across another folded piece of paper. Out of curiosity, I opened it. My hands were still unsteady as I read the small gift I had given my dad for his birthday. I remember giving it to him. At the time, I had meant for it to be a joke. I was comparing him to my grandfather. I told him that he was getting old, but it happened to be okay, because he would become old and wise just like my grandpa. It’s only ironic that he died a few months later, the note long gone from my mind.

Tears fell down my face. I felt horrible for giving my dad such a hard time the night before. He kept trying to make conversation with me, trying to make me feel better, but I just brushed him off. This whole time he had this. A story I thought I threw away and a birthday note from a long time ago. What else could he have?

Now, out of complete curiosity, I searched for something else and found one last thing. A piece of paper folded into a rectangle. I opened it up only to find handwriting so familiar to my own. My eyes lit up in recognition of the memory. It was a note I had written to the tooth fairy asking for fifty cents (instead of twenty-five), because I had gotten that tooth pulled. It hurt. Although, I knew that wasn’t the reason he kept it. He kept it, because I had signed my name as ‘pumpkin’. A nickname my dad had given me as a child, because I wore a pumpkin costume on Halloween.

More tears were streaming down my face, but out of excitement. He cares this much? I knew he cared, but this feeling was absolutely indescribable. My heart filled with warmth at the very thought. All signs of depression gone, only happiness could overtake my body.