Back through little girl eyes

Candy, tenderness and coffee. These are the elements I subconsciously associate with my grandparents. Their house was a very important and special place in my childhood. It was my second home.

My grandfather was a very intelligent man. Even though he was not much educated he was brilliant. He was always building things to improve the house or his car. He had a place filled with tools for his creations and had specially designed children size tools for my brother and I to “help” him. He was an adorable person.

My parents and grandparents were neighbours. Their backyards shared the same wall where my grandfather placed a square-shaped window, with a square curtain to give it a friendly, not invasive look. I loved that window, my grandmother used to hand me all kinds of delicious goodies through it. But the best part about it was calling for my grandparents whenever I was bored or in trouble and then being lifted and transferred to their house.

The window has always brought me a magical feeling. I used to think of it as a portal when I was little. Even though many years had past that still was the feeling I had when I returned to my grandparents’ house for a few days.

Only my grandmother was alive then. I was laying on the same bed I used to and that magical memory made me recall all the sensations I had as a little girl there. Suddenly I saw myself tiny in that room again. I sat on the floor and opened the huge closet doors, looking for an old small box. I could not help smiling when I found it. It safely held some of my most dear possessions through all those years - a yellow musical box with a picture of a girl trying to reach a red balloon, a miniature set of playing cards with amazing detailed illustrations and the fantastic hand painted little people made of clay. Each little person had an individual cardboard box, keeping them inside their own little world. They were a soldier, a German girl, a Dutch girl and a bride. The fifth box was a match box with the image of a groom which I kept for the no longer lonely bride.

Hundreds of images took over my mind. Soldiers trying to impress the clay girls. The girls running across gigantic flower fields, going as fast as they could though the tricky wind pulled back their dresses. Those characters were so alive during my childhood.

I put them back inside the boxes and went back to bed. I felt comfy back in that bedroom and fell fast asleep. There was a very old clock next to the room, and I was woken up by its ghostly sound announcing it was 3 am. I then heard a much lower sound. A unrecognizable sound, probably from my grandmother’s room or maybe of the water in the pipes, or even something outside. Sounds grow so much louder in the silence of the night.

The sound was getting closer. And closer and closer. Now it sounded like something being dragged. I turned on the lights and there were all the little clay people standing next to my bed, with their shiny little eyes and hand painted smiles, excited about my return.