Creative Corner
A short story
Castaway: A short story
1st November 2010
I leafed through the delicate pages carefully, the paper crinkling and rustling between my fingers. My eyes traced the shambolic pathway of the lazily floating particles of dust, as they meandered around the room in the flickering air. The semi-darkness was comforting, cradling me softly in a misty cocoon.
I was drawn back towards the book: the slanted handwriting; the scattered ink blobs, long soaked into the rough parchment; the dates, fixing the story in a time long past; the photos. The black-and-white faces smiled up at me; hair long out of fashion, clothes of the history books. But the entwined hands evoked a totally different sentiment.
It was amazing. The memories stored in this book, once so precious to its owner, were just cast away, to be forgotten, unwanted. Discarded in the attic – that mountainous landscape of throwaway keepsakes.
For in my hands I held the timeless, impossible, incredible tale of human life.