Tabo

Odd. That's the first word that came into the man's head. After the passing of both of his grandparents, he inherited their beach house. It was...Relatively run down, and had many things that needed fixing, the reason why no one was keen on getting it, and it would probably cost thousands of dollars to repair completely. Perhaps he wouldn't bother. However, he appreciated that he got the house anyway.

The house itself was a character. It was a symbol for the man, of a time when things were simpler. Not just in his life, but in the whole town this house was at. It wasn't too long ago, relatively speaking, that the house was surrounded by nothing but trees and nature. Now, if one were to walk down the block, you'd find a supermarket. Commerce, civilization.

This wasn't the oddest thing about the place. Something was missing from the house, but the man couldn't quite tell what it was. He opened the door, or at least tried to. the man got his first memory, the door was as broken as it had been all those years ago. A memory of his younger self trying his best at opening the door even though he knew he couldn't, inevitably failing, and having to wait for his grandmother to open it for him.

With his body's weight he managed to open it, but before he did, another memory. A string by the door, what could it be? Ah, it was the makeshift doorbell, a string attached to a physical bell, installed by his grandfather, who was too proud to let anyone else fix the actual door bell. But of course, as things are, the doorbell was never fixed.

When he entered the house, the man was surprised, again by the oddity of it all. What had happened? This house was essentially a mansion when he vacationed here, yet it was so small now. The huge, menacing and steep staircase was now an easy to overcome inconvenience, rather than an obstacle for his then short legs. These staircases were on the right side of the entrance door. To the left, two couches and a small glass table. More memories. His uncle picking him up and making him fly like an airplane, his aunt getting him ready, smearing sunscreen on his face, his grandfather waiting for him reading the newspaper.

If one kept walking you'd come to a halt. Three doors. Two rooms, one bathroom. Four beds total. That's something he had oddly forgotten. Just the sheer amount of beds in the house. He started to take count. These two rooms, four beds. Then the three rooms upstairs, one with one bed, another with two, and then the next one with two bunk beds. Lastly, his great-grandmother's room, who he had never met, or had forgotten about meeting. This room was usually not used, it was a sort of overflow room. So, in total, twelve beds.

making a right turn, going through the hallway the great-grandmother's room was at, and coming out of it, the house opened up. The dining room was very big. Although not as big as he remembered. A sad memory. His grandfather's last birthday, or at least the last one where he was there in person. Quite a day, however, he remembered it clearly. His cousins, aunts and uncles were all there. Even his maternal grandparents had come for a visit to celebrate it. A happy day, no doubt. But it pained him to remember the tired face of his grandfather. His days were numbered, but he was too young to realize that.

The man crouched to see the room from the perspective he had seen it all those years ago. He closed his eyes and tried to remember the smell of the tortillas de papa his grandmother would make in these occasions. Quite a feat too, since he remembered she did not like cooking, yet she would make one tortilla de papa for each person attending, a dish one would usually share. The man now faced his first regret, that amazing recipe would be forgotten, because of his forgetfulness to ask his grandma just how she made the damn thing, nowhere else could he find a better tortilla than his grandmother's. Nostalgia? Perhaps. But if he was to cook it, it wouldn't be for anyone else other than him, so the objective taste wouldn't matter. A small sadness came over him, he would never taste it again. The man concluded that this was a good problem to have. If this troubled him so, the man thought, his life must be pretty good.

Also in the dining room: The other bathroom. Funny memories came to him, though not funny at the time. Who would've thought that the only thing twelve beds but only two bathrooms would spell was chaos? His dad would tell him of a time when he was a kid, and remembering that the house at one point only had one bathroom. In that sense, he had had it easy.

The dining room would then lead to another hallway, the hallway that lead to the backyard, but before that, to the right, was the TV room. the couches were very light. so light in fact that, as a kid, even he was able to move them with minor effort. He liked to put both the couches together and make a sort of bed. He remembered then that, it usually was only him and his grandparents in the house, so the dining room was seldom used. for breakfast, they would usually sit at the plastic table in the TV room, and watch the news there. If not news, then he'd be playing his play station, which his grandparents did not mind to watch. His grandfather would always show visual amazement at how life like the virtual soccer players looked.

The man, finally, stepped out of the house to the backyard. The place at some point had bamboo, which made a hallway that he would pretend was a maze. the smell of his grandfather's coconut tanning lotion. He remembered then that his grandfather would usually spend his time outside, getting his tan.

As he turned back and looked at the old house, he realized what had been so odd at the beginning: To exist, to function properly, this house needed noise. Noise made by his little cousins, noise made by the TV, noise made by the laughing of his family, the chatter between the adults. This house needed his grandparents.

Fixing it would be a nice thing to do, but these were material things, what good would it do if it didn't have the people he remembered so dearly? The man was troubled, but he faced reality. As much as he wanted to be a kid again, to feel the sheer size of the house as he once had, to once again not understand what the adults were talking about, he couldn't. He thought that for as much as we all want it, we can't go back. Look back? sure, but not go back. So perhaps, this was a time for him to stop looking back, and start looking forward. At some point, he'd become the father, the uncle, the grandfather. It was up to him to make sure the future little children that would spend time in this house would have the same positive experience he had had in it. The same positive experience that made him want to go back to this house more than anything, even if it was then a little beach town with absolutely nothing to do other than being in it.

It would be quite the feat, but the man had now found determination. He'd get people to fix the roof, the leaks, to paint the house again and replace the fences. He'd get people to make another bathroom, replace the old metal refrigerator that was still too hard to open, and to replace that door.

And... The doorbell? Well, he would fix that god damned doorbell someday.