PICTURE A BOY’S ROOM. There is a bed shaped like an enormous red running shoe. The comforter is a golden map of the world. The curtains match the comforter but have faded. Time does that; fades things. The windows are deep, with cushions. A place to curl up with a comic book or a thought you need to think.
This boy is a builder. Models hang from invisible threads, ready to dive-bomb his dreams. A Lego skyscraper sits on a low table. Action figures patrol a nearby shelf — transformers in various states of transformation.
He is a dreamer. Above the bed is a framed picture of a house the boy drew when he was not even nine. A dream house. There is a book open on the bedside table. He might have just stepped out to get a glass of water.
Where is he? What’s keeping him?
The curtains flutter. It’s an April night. One window is open just a crack.
Listen. Someone is outside, someone walking too close to the shrubbery, checking a window latch, checking a door handle. There is silence again and then, suddenly, the splintering of wood. The sound is muffled, over in a second. Above the bed a Super Star Destroyer clicks against the Millennium Falcon.
Reach up and still the starships. Look at your fingers. They are black with dust. Run your finger over the jacket of the book. See the picture brighten under your touch? The boy hasn’t slept in this room for four years.
No one has slept in this house for four years. There is no one at home. No one to hear a stranger break in, a thief with this whole, vast house to himself. Listen at the bedroom door. Open it. Quietly. The lights are out but there is a thin, wavering beam of light in the grand entrance hallway below.
Something has caught his interest. It is not easy to reach, by the sound of it. He seems to be struggling. He goes, returns. Now it sounds as if he is climbing. And then there is a rumbling sound, a furious shout, a thundering crash. A tremor runs through the old place. You can feel it buzzing in the bones in your feet.
Maybe this is how it all started — what stirred up the memory. For memories are like dust, in a way. They settle over time, almost invisible, but still there. Waiting.