Dusty Memories

A text buzzes Vanessa’s iPhone, illuminating a rectangle on her jean pocket.

Mum: Thnx 4 helping us 2day. Shouldn’t b 2 long @ d shops. C u soon. Xx

She looks around, seeing that half of the attic is still in need of cleaning and sorting. Catching her second wind and wiping her forehead with the back of her hand, she gets back to work. Tiny particles swirl in front of her as she brushes away a thick layer of dust, sending her coughing and swatting at the air.

Shifting garbage bags of old clothes and unused appliances reveals a box thought to be lost to time. Heaving the crumpled cardboard into an open area, Vanessa reaches for a Stanley knife only to be met by a pair of striking blue eyes hanging on the wall. Taking a moment for her eyes to focus, she sees she is not alone in the attic.

“Hello there, Mr Moth,” Vanessa says. “How long have you been watching me?” The Bogong moth opens and shuts its wings as if replying to her with a slow blink.

Vanessa opens the box to find a greeting of assorted memories. The smell of familiarity mixes with the scent of water-damaged cardboard. Under layers of birthday cards, old stationery, and knick-knacks, evidence of what seems to be another life hide.

A reminiscent smile blooms across her freckled cheeks as she thinks back to her late nights buried beneath university stress and work responsibilities. She pulls out a foam sphere painted blue and green from a high school science project.

“Ahead of my time,” Vanessa mutters, seeing that her deformed model earth had been set ablaze by splotches of red paint from mars. Placing it by her foot, it rolls away towards a folded card table as she reaches back into the box.

Shifting her old apron and old pencil case, she takes out a bundle of crinkled polaroids, marvelling at her first job working at the mall. Now slightly faded, the photos show a much younger Vanessa eating lunch in the back room of a café with her fellow workers.

I wonder where Owen and Claire ended up, she thinks. She finds a photo from the day after she got fired due to supposed budget cuts. Through the layer of sand and dirt, she sees her 17-year-old self with crooked bleached bangs, her most outrageous and spontaneous decision.

How did no one tell me I looked like this? She cringes at her younger, edgier self, hiding her hideous hair under another pile of photos. The empty space in the box grows slowly as she continues to rummage through forgotten treasures. Filling the floor around her with her past, she notices something glinting in the overhead lamplight.

“What do you think,” she asks the moth still hanging on the wall, holding up a silver necklace from her first boyfriend. The necklace spins in the air as the moth closes its wings, hiding its false sapphire eyes. “You’re right. Probably from the cheap shop.” She tosses it near a pile of old clothes, all of which anxiously wait to find a new home in the charity bin or the rubbish bin.

Leaving the best for last, she pulls out a small teddy with curly fur. “This is where you’ve been hiding,” she exclaims. Although his original strawberry scent had waned, the memory of it still lingered on his worn-out nose. Glancing at her watch, she realises she’s spent over 45 minutes unpacking the box. After giving Sir Hugglesworth the hug he had waited years for, it is like no time has passed at all.