Rose

My grandparents Varley can't get into their sitting room any more.
The doorway is blocked with stacks of boxes which my Nana believes will
have a use one day. She must have started with one, but it bred and
bred, and the pile grew like a monster, blocking out the light.
But I went in there once, as a child. Even then it was
astonishing.
The room smelt of dust, and it caught in my throat. I had barely got
two steps in before I met a jumble mountain and I gazed at it in
wonder. It towered high in front of me, almost to the ceiling: Old
crumbly books, a lamp shade, cardboard, indefinable objects, more than
I could take in. My hands itched for the books at first but I was
afraid they would turn to dust in my grasp, or that moving them would
bring an avalanche down on me. I turned away from them and saw further
stacks of things to my left. The more serious part of me saw the
tragedy of this room, taken over by my Nana's obsession, but I couldn't
repress a small grin. I was about nine I think, and to my young mind
this place was a treasure trove. There could be miracles hidden in its
depths.
I found more stacks of things, they were less daunting, about half my
height, and I began to investigate. I opened a little tin box and found
electrical bits and bobs inside. I felt a twinge of disappointment,
this was boring.
I opened other boxes: Photos. This was better, but I'd seen a lot of
them before. Ancient black and white things, a picture of my Nana as a
baby, with a frilly bonnet on. Like stepping back in time, an inner
voice whispered, and again I felt sad, because nothing was quite as
exciting as I wanted it to be. I wanted real treasure.
I carried on down the narrow corridor made by the jumble. I found some
interesting things, metal figures, little trinkets. I found a frayed
armchair tucked away in the corner. I had a sudden urge to sit down in
it, not so much out of tiredness as out of curiosity, but I couldn't.
Like everything else, it was buried. A stack of paper in the middle of
the seat. I wanted to move it, but where to? Shift anything and the
mountains would only grow.
I had rounded the corner of the jumble now, and reached the further end
of the room. I looked around me, stopped and looked harder. A window
let in streams of dusty golden sunlight.
Through a crack in the frame stretched a rose, it'd forced its way in
from the jungle outside. Its petals shone warmly. It looked so out of
place there that I caught my breath. Birds were singing outside.
My Nana came in and found me in that corner.
"You've got a rose growing in through your window," I told her.
"Yes. I couldn't bear to cut it, it's so pretty."
I stood and looked at it for a while after she'd gone.
Treasure.