Nostalgia
The
desk was of fine, pale wood, worn and burnished by the hands of a hundred
schoolchildren. It had been painted blue long ago, but the paint had chipped
off from the years and the touch of childish hands. Now only a few traces of
faded blue remained, edging the corners of the bottom of the desk, preserved
beneath black medallions of petrified gum. The desk bore the badges of time and
use. Children had come and children had gone: the desk had seen them all.
It
is summer now, and the desk sits with its brethren in the empty classroom.
Sunlight streams in through the grimy window, lighting the layers of dust on
desks and floor, turning drifting motes to sparks or stars. In a way, the old
classroom is its own universe. The air here is full of age and memories--ghostly traces of laughter, faces of children long past and buried. Sunlight
paints a mottled fresco on the wall, lights gently on the dust of ages past.
Nothing moves, nothing stirs, but the room is full of the swelling tide of
time.
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