Sarah had finished unpacking and
organizing her possessions in the cozy house. She'd even put a few nails in the
blank walls to hang some paintings she had purchased in her various travels.
The only place left in her new home for her to put her mark was the basement.
She'd only been down the rickety stairs a
few times. She didn't need to store anything there, and her washing machine and
dryer fit nicely in the laundry room off the kitchen. There was still plenty of
afternoon sun streaming through the windows of the ground floor, so maybe the
basement wouldn't be too creepy.
She brought along a flashlight just in
case.
The bare bulb at the bottom of the steps
illuminated enough of the damp room that she felt a little bit silly carrying
the flashlight. No such thing as being too prepared, she thought to herself,
shining the light into several of the corners.
The basement consisted of a single room,
the furnace residing just past the bottom of the stairs. A set of wood shelves
lined one wall. A sump pump sat watch in a sump pit, waiting for unwelcome
water to seep through the cement blocks.
Otherwise, the room was bare except for a
squadron of cobwebs hanging from the low ceilings. There are advantages to
being short, Sarah quipped to herself.
She walked over to the set of shelves,
wondering if she would discover anything interesting to give her clues about
the home's past. Each of the twelve wooden shelves was empty, revealing no
clues to their past. Sarah imagined glass pint jars filled with homemade
preserves, canned pickles, apples, and other sorts of produce occupying the
space.
She ran her hand lightly over one of the
wooden boards at shoulder height. She was wary of slivers, but her hand
returned to her unscathed. And empty, except for dust.
She sighed. No hidden treasures.
She shone her flashlight beam along the
wall just to be certain. Something with the cement blocks didn't look right. It
almost looked as if a section of the wall was newer.
She couldn't tell for sure as the shelves
were nearly two feet wide, keeping her from getting a good look at the wall
behind them. She walked the perimeter of the room, shining her light on the
walls.
She discovered the same discrepancy in the
cement blocks directly across from the suspicious area behind the shelving. A
section of wall three feet wide and four feet tall had been replaced. The floor
afforded her no information. She guessed that the cement floor had been poured
sometime after the rest of the house had been built, perhaps when the drain
tile and sump pump had been installed.
Well, I guess there's nothing else
intriguing about my simple home, she thought to herself.
She flicked off her flashlight and headed
back upstairs.
Is there newer cement blocks in Sarah’s basement? And why? Will she find out or does it really matter?
These and many more questions will be answered in “Prior to Now”. If you haven’t read it yet, I hope you do soon. And when you are finished with it, please leave a comment on Amazon.com, Good Reads, or any place else you frequent on the internet.
If you still need to buy a signed copy from me, I will be at the Food Truck-a-Palooza in Merrill, Wisconsin, this Saturday from 11 am to 7 pm. Even if you don’t need a book, I hope you swing by to see me if you are in the area.
Have a good weekend, Chris
