The basement...

I'm in the mood to share my writing!  So here is another, yep another short story entitled "The basement".  Again feedback would be nice! (smile)


THE BASEMENT

As I walk down the stairs, I trail my hands over the walls. The wood feels smooth, as though I am touching polished glass. My nose detects the light scent of fresh lemons from the oil used to polish the walls. The carpet on the stairs resembles a speckled ear of corn, with its black, yellow and tan pattern. While the carpet looked new many years ago, it is now dull and lifeless as if it is has grown weary of the many feet that have trampled it.

As soon as I enter the basement, my mind is assaulted with memories. My mind goes back to when my mother sat on the gold colored sofa, and folded laundry while chatting on the phone. The gold color is not merely yellow, but actually glows like the gold paper used to wrap Christmas presents. I can see myself, sitting on the thick, shaggy, blackberry colored rug, in front of the television, polishing my toe nails.

If only I could go back to a more innocent time, and a more innocent me. This basement used to be my haven, but now it’s just another place where bad things happened.

I rub my hand over my burgeoning stomach. The things that happened to me won’t happen to her. I know my baby is a girl, just as I know she will never set foot in this basement.

I give the gold sofa a wide berth, as I head towards the back of the basement. It’s musty back here. Mama’s getting older, she can’t get back here and clean like she used to.

I kneel down and open the box that contains my journals. Journals, that haven’t seen the light of day in over ten years. I wouldn’t have come down here to retrieve them, if she hadn’t suggested it. She’s been trying to get me to come down here since we started our sessions well over a year ago. When she first suggested it, I told her flat out, “let sleeping dogs lie”. She just smiled, and replied “when you’re ready”, in a very non-intimidating voice.


Perhaps that’s why I’ve stayed so long in therapy. She’s non-threatening and non-confrontational. She’s everything that I’m not. Sometimes I curse her out, like yesterday when she asked me again to get the journals. I called her a nosy bitch and she just smiled. I told her this therapy was just a racket, another way to make money off of the black woman’s plight. Again she just smiled. Finally after I ran out of steam, I agreed to get the journals.

I’m every black girl stereotype you could think of. I’m loud, confrontational, ghetto as hell, and I love a good fight. Not the verbal spars, that I see some women do, but the Vaseline smeared face, earring taking off, backhand slapping kind of fighting. I’m a fighter. Mama says that I’ve always been a fighter, even as a toddler I bit and scratched the other kids.

I glance over at the gold sofa again. I didn’t fight that day. I open the red journal, and go to the last entry. I look at the first sentence of the last entry, “Today I was raped”, I read. Water drips down and puddles in the creases of the dusty journal. At first, I think that the ceiling is leaking, but then I realize the water is coming from me. Tears continue to mix in with the dust, creating long, brown streaks on the page.
I shut the journal quickly and glance back at the gold sofa. “Why didn’t you fight? I whisper. “You’re a fighter, you should have fought. You let him take it, and you didn’t even fight!” I continued getting angrier. I told her that I couldn’t remember what happened, but that wasn’t completely true.


She said the journals would help me to remember. I didn’t need a dusty old journal to remember though. I remember the important parts of what happened. The day my life changed, the day this basement ceased to become a haven and became a grave.

He was older, and I looked up to him. I had that school-girl crush that all girls have on their brother’s friends. He did everything well, from basketball to school. I was twelve; in fact I had just turned twelve the week before.

I thought I was so grown, with my new braids. Red and white beads dangled from the ends, and they made a shish shish sound every time I moved my head. He said they were fly. He said I was fly and asked if he could touch them. He touched my breasts instead, and continued to touch me, even after I said no. It’s true when I told her I don’t remember. Parts of it I don’t remember, like the actual act itself. I just remember pain, and blood in my panties.

He said that if I told, people would call me a slut. I knew he spoke the truth. People would call me a slut. Mama’s friends were always saying I was too fast anyway, this would just be proof. I never told anybody, until I told her. Told her because, I don’t want any baggage with this baby girl. Told her because, I’m tired of living in this basement. Every mistake I’ve ever made is because of this basement. My daughter won’t be held hostage by this basement; I’“Black people don’t get therapy”, mama said. “Black people seek God”. I wanted to ask her where God was when I was raped. Hell, where was she when I was raped. I gather my journals, and stuff them in the bag, I brought down for this very purpose.


I stand at the foot of stairs, and turn to look at the sofa again. I hear mama upstairs moving around in the kitchen. “Girl!” she yells down, “come out of that dusty old basement, aint nothing down there but junk!” “I know mama” I mutter to myself. “I know”.