Attic Cleanout

Ben Miller had inherited his Uncle John's house. Ben, unfortunately, wasn't too happy about his inheritance. First, it was an extremely tiny lot in the worst part of town. Second, the house had seen way better days, and now was suffering from wood rot and was leaning worse than the Tower of Pisa. Ben wasn't even sure if any of the contents could be salvaged, or if he'd have to toss them all out to the curb for the trash man to pick up. Ben was just tempted to call the fire department and burn the whole mess, but his curiosity had won out and he'd decided not to. Besides, he'd just lost his job of fifteen years, and the job market wasn't looking too promising right now for any job offers coming his way, so he had nothing better to do.

Ben didn't even know he had an Uncle John. According to the probate attorney, Mr. Maxwell Godwin, Esq. Attorney-at-lawl, John Mendez was the younger brother of Jeannene, Ben's mother. John was the family's black sheep and had left home at the age of sixteen. He was some adventurer but seemed to be the unlucky type since he never found anything worth more than a few hundred dollars. According to the lawyer, my Uncle hadn't seen anyone in the town since he had left, not even his family, except on the rare occasions when he did come in and stopped at the Attorney's office. Uncle John took the Counsellor into his confidentiality on one of his recent trips back home.

As much as he could discern from Mr. Godwin, Uncle John had been keeping an eye on the family from a distance. He'd always loved Ben's mom the most out of all his siblings, so when Ben was born, he really took an interest in me. Miller was told that when he was thirteen and attacked by bullies, the businessman who stopped the attack was actually his Uncle. Then again when he graduated from Hillside High, it was his Uncle who had supplied the mysterious scholarship that had paid for eight years of university.

The real kicker was when Mr. Godwin handed Ben an envelope and explained that was from when he had paid back the $95000 bank loan for the house he had purchased. It was a cashier's check for the exact amount Miller had had to pay back. All Ben could do at the time was just stare at the attorney. Even when he handed him the keys to his Uncle's house.

So now here he stood, in front of some fifty shades of gray colored house, covered in mold, two-story with a gabled attic leaning monstrosity. It took up the majority of a 1/4 acre lot and what it didn't cover, shrubs and vegetation did. He wished he could say the house was pretty at one time, but Ben seriously doubt it. The house was all severe angles; the windows were all odd-shaped and none of them matched; and the weirdest thing of all was the shade of chartreuse the paint chips were around the house.

No sense in using the key to open the oval-shaped front door, since it was hanging on just one hinge. Ben seriously wondered why the house hadn't been burnt down by the young vandals of the neighborhood. As he went to cross the threshold, he heard a high-pitched young voice, "Hey, Mister, you don't want to go in there! You hear me, Mister! That place is haunted!" Miller turned but all he saw was two young girls running off, maybe nine or ten years old. He turned and crossed into a world that time truly had forgotten and rot had taken complete absolute control over.

As Ben walked through each room, he tried to make a mental note of anything that may have been worth checking out, hoping to find some hidden gem of an antique that was worth saving. Nothing on the first floor or the basement appeared promising. The cellar was literally an Olympic-sized pool full of what appeared to be raw sewage with what had to be the most oversized rats that Ben had ever seen swimming in it. Ben just quickly backed out of the doorway and shut what was left of the door.

Ben almost talked himself out of going up the rickety stairs to the second floor to check it out, figuring it would be just more of the same. He almost wished he had, until he stepped into what had been the master bedroom and saw what appeared to be a new aluminum ladder leg hanging from a square hole in the corner of the room. Walking over, he noticed that the ladder was mounted in such a way as to be able to be pulled down to the floor, allowing one to climb up if they so wanted. It didn't take Ben's curiosity long to make him decide to clamber up the ladder to see what was up in the attic.

The ladder lead up to a landing that was enclosed and just big enough to step out on. There was an opening to the right of the ladder, so Ben went through, and stopped, staring in amazement. The entire attic was filled wall to wall with Louis XIV furniture pieces in perfect condition. It was obvious that Uncle John slept here when he had stayed in town because now there was a fine layer of dust covering everything.

Ben walked around astounded, trying to imagine how his Uncle had even gotten any of these antiques up here with how rickety the house was now. He couldn't even begin to see how the house was ever in good enough repair to even get a vase up the first flight. The attic was the complete opposite of the rest of the house. Where the rest of the house was a fallen down, rotten mess, the attic was a pristine clean palace.

Ben was staring up at a tapestry that appeared to have some King from a long-lost era emblazed on it, not watching where he was going when he tripped. A leather strap to an old leather messenger satchel had tangled on his left foot, causing him to stumble into the Louis XIV armchair and land on his derriere on the hard refinished oak floor. He was a little stunned at first and paid more attention to the beauty of the Afghan quilt on the arm of the chair than he was in the messenger bag.

Untangling the strap from his foot, Ben made a mental note of how heavy the bag was, which made him wonder what in tarnation could be inside the smooth, scuffed fine leather. Carrying the bag over to the nearest table, he set it down. and prepared to open it up. Taking a deep breath and preparing to be disappointed, he lifted the flap and unzipped the opening. Out poured the largest pile of opals that Ben had ever seen in his whole life. There were uncut opals, some still in the rough, and there were opals that seemed to glow with an inner fire.

Picking up the largest cut opal, Ben stared at its bright flaming colors. He realized it no longer mattered much that he no longer had a job right now. From the looks of things, he wouldn't have to worry about working for a good long time. It seems Uncle John had been looking out for him one final time.