Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: Stash (01/09/25)
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TITLE: Treasured Memories | Previous Challenge Entry
By Asha John
01/14/25 -
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Memory is such a capricious thing, don’t you think? It is not always the momentous or the flashy or the crowning achievement of life that pops up and draws us into those moments of reliving the past.
Surprisingly, among the many associated with J, our oldest, we would find ourselves laughing over and over a whimsical incident from three decades back.
We noticed early on that J had a curious streak. Easily bored with the few toys he had, our 11-month-old would wander around our small, old soviet-style house, looking for things to do. He was at that stage when holding on to furniture or the wall and moving unsteadily was a lot more fun than just crawling. After probing interesting-looking corners, crawling under chairs to stare at their underside, fiddling with oddly shaped knobs on the drawers of an antique desk, he would waddle into the kitchen and prop himself down beside the floor cabinets. For almost an hour, he would sit with the pots and pans, examining their handles and what seemed like testing the various sounds they made on the linoleum floor. The spoons and ladles fascinated him to no end.
Needless to say, it was a blessing in disguise. I made the most of that time, quickly getting several kitchen tasks done.
This went on for some weeks before we started noticing that sundry small things around the house were missing. Random stuff from here and there: a few coat hangers, a number of spoons, some building blocks, pencils, and the like. Even a small saucepan seemed to vanish into thin air. As you would imagine, we whinged a bit, blaming ourselves for misplacing stuff while making quick searches in all the obvious places.
When a week had passed by, our confidence that they would invariably turn up began to dwindle. To say that we were absolutely baffled would be an understatement. Having had no guests during those cold winter weeks and living in a small house which had, by then, been turned upside down, where could those objects disappear to?
That was when our outmoded Russian heating system began to make some noises. The entire house was warmed by room radiators which carried hot water from a huge boiler situated at the corner of the corridor and encased by a wooden safety fence. The boiler did need some prodding at times when the gas flow was slow.
Even the slightest out-of-the-ordinary sound from the heater always got my husband’s attention. Hurrying from the closet he had already combed through more than once that day, he proceeded to take a look at the boiler.
And then, I heard the heartiest peal of laughter from the corridor!
With a quick glance at J who was contentedly babbling to the plastic bowls scattered on the kitchen floor, I stepped out and peered into the small crevice at the base of the boiler my husband was pointing at.
There they were. All the missing stuff!
It looked like J had painstakingly slipped each of those things through a small square hole in the fence which was an access point for repairs.
Well, let’s just say that it was not easy making him understand that he could not play that game anymore. Figuring out an innovative way to make the square hole inaccessible was tricky too.
But for some reason, that ‘secret stash’ of our toddler is a clear memory that we still laugh over.
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