many rooms, 1

October 2016

 

Where I was truly happy

“My Father’s house has many rooms…”

John, 14:2

 

The room where I was truly happy made a sharp corner, on a Flatiron-ish second floor. One entered facing the corner, through a deep threshold, between built-in closets, with dark brown triplex doors and detailed glass applications on their upper halves. Lots of light came in from the long strip window on the corner, unwinding to face east, south and west. The sliding glass panels of this long window were framed with rather thin, raw aluminium profiles, and thick black rubber seals. There were no window sills.

There was a big General Electric air conditioner hanging out the east, and the whole window usually stood behind two curtains. The first layer was a thin translucent veil, the second a heavy, gilded cloth. This second layer was usually open during the day, and always closed at night.

The floor carpet was light green , with thick and long threads of two or three different tones. It folded up towards the skirting of the white stuccoed walls. Dilatations marked the place of reinforced concrete columns in these walls. There were a few very minor cracks in the stucco, almost imperceptible, due to dampness or changes in temperature.

The ceiling was finished in thick pearlite, with a bit bonier white. At the center of the ceiling shone a small crystal lamp. At the end of the closet a door led to a bathroom, past the bone-white boudouir table, with its three mirrors, and its ornamented stool, draped in shiny dark green. Next to it sat the huge recliner, with wooden arms, and draped in turn with blue and green tartan. The recliner faced a small Korean TV, placed exactly on the corner of the room, on a simple grey table, and beside a green and white plastic pedestal Japanese fan.

In front of the entrance lay two identical beds, one beside the other, making up for a huge bed. Their foot- and head-boards had the same bone-white decorated wood as the boudoir table, with equally decorated nightstands. These beds were always perfectly made under thick, decorated grey and green covers with fringed edges.

Between the bed furthest away from the entrance, and two armchairs (same decorated bone-white wood, with the same shiny green upholstery as the beds and the boudoir table - their backs against the window), lay a thick cotton mattress, temporarily unrolled on the floor, and covered with a clean white cotton bedsheet.

 

Jorge Mejia Hernandez