The Universe In Storage

My family in unit 67

Photo by Darrin Moore on Unsplash.

I roll up the storage unit door and find the universe: the first half of my father, incubated, dried like an apricot, all his first seventy years,

a train set no longer works, tools and board games, a table with three legs belonged to my grandmother, her 1000-word jigsaw puzzle right where we left it,

dad is made of more yesterdays than tomorrows, and there are seven jars sticky with apple jam from the orchard out back of the old house,

I put three jars of roofing nails on grandma’s desk so I can find the billiard sticks, then move three boxes of books so I can reach the bookshelf where grandpa stored his Reader’s Digests, Ian Fleming, and Louis L’amour,

everywhere is littered with evidence of things done once which will never be done again, the old dirt bike, greasy grimy dirty dead, nobody is coming back to make it run again, my grandfather’s sea-chest with the broken hinges, everyplace around me is a reminder of my legacy, rusted iron, worn leather, splintered spirit,

my nostrils fill with decay and the stuck smell of winter while I file through boxes of manila envelopes, old letters, and apologies,

I knock my knee against a cast-iron ashtray and cut my leg on the shark-teeth gears of my granddad’s Huffy,

the smell of the seasons is here and the seasons smell like mothballs, decades-old holographic Wheaties boxes, rolled posters and particle board, oil and saltpeter,

the smell of the river is here, and cigarette smoke, grandpa’s hat and grandma’s crossword puzzles, bright red lipstick smeared across yellow-toothed grins, all here,

the scent of one-hundred walks down the road to fetch mail, rain on dirt and gravel, spring’s first flood, here,

I keep the universe in my storage, space lines and planets, spiral-arm galaxies and nebulas, black holes with family secrets, dwarf stars dying slow,

planets orbit their suns, things here will never be used again, not by his hands, or mine,

a comet flying slowly between the feet of an upside down stool, across the storage interior, seems not to move at all,

I set things down for the last time, I will never touch them again before I die,

very soon I will be the only one left.

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Hey, I’m Roman. I’m working on my debut novel, 20xx, a work in magical realism. I write on Substack.