English Writing 11-1/ Describe a Room/ Traces: How the Room had been in its Own Way

 Traces: How the Room had been in its Own Way

           Lasting sound of children giggling raced on the walls of the room. It ran on the track of withering sunlight. When the spring wind intermittently came by the windowsill, the sound of new leaves rustling with power knocked on the window pane. The slim sprigs rubbed its green flesh on the pane with the leaves. All was shadows; excerpt for the sound. The longer branches, rounder leaves, and muffled laughter sank in through the window. 

             From the stack of empty Pepsi cans piled on the desk arose smell of old pastry, “syrupy sweet”. The traces of used pencil shavings and bits of eraser pieces were scattered over the desk along with tattered notebooks. The notebooks were scratchpads for the pre-calculus exercise problems. Beside that was a drained cup previously filled with shockingly sweet ice tea. The precipitated, gooey ice tea residue also emitted sickly sharp sweetness through the atmosphere. Reaching out for water, I found nothing but an empty cup. Bothered, I tossed a coin towards the bookshelf. The coin joined the dispersed set of other rubbishes that used to be sorted in the pencil vase. It all used to be in order, all tidied. It all used to be.

             Slowly, a pleasant odor prevailed from outside. Beyond the firmly closed door, mom was there. There was mom blanching spinach and baking slices of potato. Cheerful screams of potato being fried by grape seed oil burst out through the wooden door every now and then. The bubbles popping from the boiling pot made good company with the scream. Busy footsteps plod along the kitchen between the fridge and the stove. Lying down on the bed beside the bookshelf, I gazed at the door that showed many movements behind its thickness.

             On the other side of the room was a showcase where my parents placed mementos from foreign travels. The mementos were from places I have been to, but do not remember. There was a copper nude sculpture of a young woman from Italy. The sculpture was too big compared to other souvenirs. It stood out among the miniatures of countries. The tint, rusty piece of metal made me put my face close to its surface and made me observe the patterns of blue-gray rust. Italy was all sunny and the concrete roads were beautiful. The air was dry and clear, unlike the room’s damp and sickly sweet atmosphere. Maybe the difference in air made the sculpture rot. Or the faint traces of sunlight from the window made the sculpture “all blues” even more.

             The windowsill is coated with a thin layer of dust and stains inside, and wears sunlight on the outside. The absence of brightness inside makes the room more in its own way, while the outside more beautiful. Then the sunlight is within the room, through the supplement of shadows. What is not there relates to what is there. This is how origins live through traces from time or other, and how the room had been in its own way.