The first two days of Calvin’s stay were filled with indecision. It had never felt like this on previous visits. Maybe it was the open-ended nature of this visit. There were no holidays to celebrate, no date in which he would be flying away. His time here lacked urgency and a purpose and in this vacuum he grew restless.

The last time he had been at home without a strict end point was when he was in high school. It was a different era now, but those old routines began to creep back into his life. The same alarm clock blaring to life, playing the same radio station, at the exact same time. It all worked to warp him back in time. The old fears of being late for school returned to his brain, and before he fully realized why he was getting up, he would have already have made his bed and be halfway through his shower.

His parents, for the most part, took his extended stay in stride. He and his father would share the breakfast table in the morning. A few greetings and farewells shared through a wall of newsprint. His mother would walk through the house, giving him a quick run-down of what food was on hand in the kitchen, and then head out as well.

It was during the amorphous hours that followed where he abruptly fell out of his old routine. He had nowhere to go, nothing to do. The first few days, he walked to a nearby coffee shop, doing what work he could. It did feel strange though, to have chosen to take time off so that he could trade his comfortable for a cramped café. But it occupied his time, and he told himself that in the end, that was enough.

He wasn’t the only one who found it strange. At the end of his third day doing this, he received a passive aggressive email telling him that if he was going to take a vacation, he needed to actually take it. Calvin finished reading the email, and solemnly closed his laptop. It was four in the afternoon, and he had nothing to do. He looked down at the small paper cup that had held his espresso, the cheapest thing on the menu, and considered getting another. Instead, he walked home.

The house was completely empty, just as he had left it. It was a small ranch style home, and the only home Calvin had ever lived in. He moved through one room after the next, his hand drifting along the walls as he went. Each room had its function that had been hammered into the space and into his head. Places to work, to eat, to sleep. Yet none of those functions fit what he needed to do now, mostly because Calvin wasn’t sure what he should do.

Finally, he stopped in his parents’ room. There was a small panel in the ceiling, one that he was aware of, but had never thought about before. The attic of the house was a dusty room that he had only glimpsed a few times when his father was poking around amongst the boxes.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

He reached up to grab the small ring situated one end of the panel. It took most of his weight to pull it open, and when it did, a neat wooden ladder unfolded to the ground. He was forbidden from going into the attic. It was too dangerous, and created a mess. For some reason, he didn’t care about those rules now.

The stairs groaned under the weight they so rarely felt. The attic was cramped, the ceiling tapering up from either side, forming a narrow space in the middle that Calvin was able to stand in fully upright. He ran his finger across the top of one of the boxes, and left a single line in the auburn coating. It was only now that he was up in this unwelcoming place that he questioned why he was up there.

There was no order to the boxes. Some of them had faded labels written in sharpie, but after opening a few, it became clear that they no longer corresponded to what was in each box. Calvin moved from one box to the next, ducking his head, and pulling them out at random. He continued to pull one box after another, not sure what it was he was looking for.

He finished going through a box filled with dusty tablecloths, each one a tapestry of a different holiday. He ran his hand over a green one with a pattern of tiny Christmas trees. This wasn’t something he did. Poking around without a goal in mind. Yet he continued to pack up one box, and then went looking for another. Finally, he came to a cream-colored box that had been tucked right beneath the slanting ceiling, a nearly perfect fit. It’s faded label said pot lids.

There was nothing about this box that had called out to him. He had liked the way it so neatly filled the space between the floor and the ceiling, but nothing more. Inside were several carefully folded canvases, a small palette filled with dried and cracked watercolor paint, and several wispy paintbrushes.

It took him a moment to remember that the various objects inside were his. He carefully let his finger brush against one of the canvases. It was a bit sloppy, but he could recognize the strokes that he had made depicting a small cottage, covered in snow, a skier standing in front of it. The recognition was instant, yet he continued to pick up each object in the box, and turn it over slowly, like he was an appraiser, searching for flaws. Those afternoons spent painting were so long ago.

He heard the front door from below, and with a panic that made him feel instantly like a child who had misbehaved, he closed the box, and descended from the attic. He was able to quickly sweep up the dust before anyone noticed what he had been doing. It wasn’t his parents disapproval that motivated him, he just didn’t know how he would explain why he had been up there.

That night, he lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling. His mind filled with a confusing set of memories that had been forgotten and packed away.