Dating : A Day in the Life

A short story about a special man 10/11/1997

Mr Thomas walked into his kitchen shutting the door behind him. It was a habit he had picked up from his dad, to save heat from escaping the room, although in this case there was no heat to lose so he decided not to remove his coat and scarf until the kitchen had warmed up a bit. He shuffled over to the stove and lite on one of the rings to begin warming his hands, reaching up above the stove he found himself a small kettle and cup from the cupboard and then turned to shuffle across the kitchen floor to the sink and began filling the kettle with water.
“Just another day in the life of Old Misery,” he thought to himself. As the water sprayed from the tap into the kettle he watched the children playing in the car park as if nothing had been said.
“Well, what do they actually know? After all, they’re only kids, no experience of life, no loves lost,” he thought trying to convince himself that there was nothing personal about the remarks towards him.
With the kettle now full of water Mr Thomas shuffled back to the stove which had heated the kitchen quite nicely for him. He placed the kettle down over the flame to boil and returned to the hallway to exchange his coat and scarf for a nice, warm, dark green cotton housecoat. Yes it was old but it was all part of his daily routine, and besides… he liked it. He removed his ‘walking shoes’ and replaced them with a well-worn pair of slippers that had been perfectly moulded to fit him and no one else. Now warm and content that the day was moving as it should he made his way back into the kitchen. As he walked his slippers slipped off the heels of his feet to make a ‘flip-flop’ sound on the tiled floor of the kitchen. Mr Thomas enjoyed lifting his feet higher to see if the flip-flop sound would get any louder, sometimes it did and sometimes it didn’t — it didn’t really matter, it was just a bit of fun. After he had finished making his tea, Mr Thomas ‘flip-flopped’ his way into the living room where an open fire had been patiently flickering and awaiting his arrival. He knew it was wrong to go out of the house and leave the fire burning but it saved the wait for heat when he got home, he closed the door to maintain the warmth.

The living room was very abstractly decorated. Cluttered shelves, bookcases, tables and cabinets were in every corner of the room but there was a story behind every single item and that’s how he liked to keep things. However, the room was not without character, a spiral staircase ascended in one corner of the room while in the opposite corner stood a grand piano, for no other reason but to collect dust as Mr Thomas couldn’t even play, it was really used more as a display unit for photographs and memorabilia of the Thomas family. The walls were lined with shelves filled with books, models, dolls and pictures of every description, indeed, he would often describe the room as ‘his own little Aladin’s cave’. Mr Thomas looked up to the far end of the room to catch a quick glimpse of the time which was being proudly displayed by a tired old looking grandfather clock. “Timed to perfection,” he said to himself. There was actually no need to time anything so precisely — but then, this was all part of the daily routine that Mr Thomas had been following now for many years.

Holding the warm mug of tea firmly in his left hand and taking care not to spill a drop, due to the fact that he would always fill the mug up to the brim (all part of the normal routine of course), Mr Thomas lowered himself slowly into his big ‘easy’ chair. The chair was his most favourite piece of furniture, big and soft with an elaborately embroidered flowery design to finish off the upholstery. It was placed almost in the centre of the room and this, of course, was no random placing. Mr Thomas’ chair had been placed directly in front of his fireplace. In fact, the chair had been there for so long the upholstery was beginning to brown from the constant heat of the flames of the fire and the thinly laid carpet had been made even thinner under the pressure from the feet of the chair which had now left permanent indentations in the carpet. Still, this is how he liked things to be, and besides, he now knew where his chair was supposed to be if it even happened to get moved.

As he sat sipping his tea and staring into the fire he could still hear the boys out front kicking their ball up against his wall. Mr Thomas turned to a pottery figurine nicely positioned for conversation at the side of the fireplace, the ever cheerful Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland. It was a gift from the young couple who lived next door before their house had been destroyed by that bomb blast a few years earlier. Just a pile of rubble now, the boys found it a great place to play. He often wondered where the nice young couple had ended up.
“Why do I always let those kids get to me?” he asked. The Cheshire cat replied with a smile. “Old misery they call me, misery! I’m not always miserable, am I? Maybe I could make friends with them? Invite them in, offer them a drink of milk or… or a cheese sandwich. Get to know them a little, they’ll know I’m not miserable once they know me and then maybe… maybe, they’ll leave me alone.” Mr Thomas sipped his tea and stared profusely at the huge grin of the Cheshire cat, the orange-yellow glow of the flames reflected on the pure white of his teeth making his grin even more prominent. Then, like an unrehearsed jolt of electricity, Mr Thomas — slowly — put his cup of tea down by the side of his chair. “Take care of that cat, I’ve got an idea,” he said as he heaved himself from the easy chair. He shuffled as quickly as he could to the spiral staircase in the corner of the room, leaving his cup of tea under the watchful grin of the Cheshire cat. As he approached the staircase he slowed to carefully place one foot onto the first step. He’d been told so many times by a variety of people over the years that it was time to get rid of the spiral staircase but he ignored the unwanted, overcautious ‘advice’. A spiral staircase was something he’d read about in fairytales and here it was, in his house, it wasn’t going anywhere. No way. The spiral staircase was here to stay.
After much coordination and fancy footwork, Mr Thomas eventually reached the top step. He stopped for a while to catch his breath and then continued to the first room on the right, his bedroom.

Mr Thomas continued to think of his idea as he opened the heavy wooden door to his bedroom. “Yes, yes that’s it! All young boys love to play and I’ve got just the thing for them to play with, they’ll love it!”. As the door creaked open letting a wave of warm air onto his face the glow of yet another open fire left to quietly burn, saving the wait for warmth, of course, greeted him. In the middle of the bedroom stood a huge four-poster bed draped with blankets and quilts and decoratively covered in white cotton lace, although the years had turned the white to a more off-white brown, but who cared — he liked it that way. Mr Thomas very slowly and carefully began to lower himself down onto his knees and began to crawl towards his oversized bed. Slowly shuffling himself forward he threw the quilting and blankets over his head and shuffled deeper and deeper under. Anyone who had walked in on him at this point would have been graciously greeted by Mr Thomas’ old, and somewhat shrivelled, backside waving around in the air as he scurried further under his huge four-poster bed.
“Where is it? I know it’s here somewhere, I kept it here to be safe”, he carefully sifted through boxes of old toys and models until he finally found the box he was looking for. He grabbed the box and carefully wiggled his way back out from under the bed becoming more aware of banging his head on the bottom of it due to travelling backwards. Once he had safely navigated himself from the depths of his search he knelt by the side of his bed with the bright white box on his lap, he paused to look at it with a slightly smug, slightly proud smile on his face. Mr Thomas opened the box and stopped, the unexpected smell suddenly brought a flurry of memories flooding back to him; sounds, shapes, colours, voices and faces… family faces… his parents, two brothers and a sister, his aunts and uncles. Distant memories and happy times, times he was proud to call ‘his life’. He peered inside the box to find a card, a Christmas card. Gently taking the card he opened it up, it was addressed him.
‘Dearest Albee, have a wonderfully special Christmas. We hope you enjoy the gift, Lots of love and kisses always, Mum and Dad.’
He slowly closed the card and stared at the picture. It was was of a snowman making a cup of tea for Santa in his grotto. Santa was sitting in front of a big fireplace in his big easy chair wearing a nice warm housecoat and a very comfortable looking pair of slippers. Mr Thomas had wondered to himself how the snowman never melted in front of that big fireplace. He smiled at the huge rosy grin on Santa’s face and placed the card on the floor beside him. Then he slowly and carefully lifted a big shinning red tin car from the box but this was no ordinary toy car, this car had doors that actually opened and a steering wheel that actually moved the front wheels, but best of all, it was a gift from his mum and dad. The last gift they gave him before… before they had to go away. He missed them.
“ Yes,” he smiled to himself, “all boys love to play so, I’ll ask them, I’ll ask them to play. Then they’ll see, I’m not an old misery… I’m not.”