Years gone by

It had been almost five years to the day since he had moved away from home. He never liked returning, never really wanted to return. The town was the same, maybe the shop names had changed, a Bakery had become a takeaway, or a Butchers a supermarket chain but it was a different face on the same body. He hated it. It filled him with a sense of dread, of panic, as if he were regressing as a person back to his childhood self. As if the outside world had moved on but he was still trapped here in the past.

The cause for his return was that of a mild emergency. His father had had a heart attack. Whilst it left him weak, he was recovering. He had spoken to his mother briefly on the phone, promising her he would come visit. The phone call had left an uneasy feeling in his stomach, and it was not until the drive down he realised why. He had sensed a frailty in his mother’s voice, a weakness to it he had never heard before.

He had no idea where the five years had gone.

As he approached his home, slowly bringing his car to a halt, he noticed the hedges surrounding the house had grown thicker and wilder. The branches covered in dark green leaves protruded at odd bent angles. As a child he had hated spending summer days helping his father trim them, cleaning up the fallen leaves, the branches clawing at his skin. But now his father had no one to help him, and the hedges had been left to grow wild.

His father was a proud man. Too proud to hire anyone to do the work for him. Refusing to give up control. To prove to himself that he could still do it. Until one day he no longer could. But even with all his pride, his father had never let it get in the way of love. When he was young, his father had always wanted to take him fishing, to spend more time together, but it had never interested him. He had always found an excuse, a reason to be elsewhere.

As he stepped out of the car, he looked up towards the house where he had spent the first 18 years of his life. The front door a pale faded brown, the layers slowly eroded away by the elements. The ivy that had been kept at bay by his father had slowly begun to creep higher, consuming the face of the house.

Over the years he had still spoken to his parents, long distant phone calls, the occasion weekend when they had come to visit. But it had always been fleeting, he was always too busy focused on something else, too busy focused on his own life to truly pay attention, to notice the slight changes. Until they piled up one after another, eventually changing from a trickle to a dam break.

His mother greeted him at the door. Embracing him. Leading him inside. Telling him the local gossip, people who married, people who had died, people he could barely remember. Blurry memories of old teachers and old classmates.

His mother had always loved to gossip, and at one time, knew everyone in the neighbourhood on a first name basis. But those times had passed, people had moved away and after she retired from teaching, she had very little chance to meet those who replaced them. Even more so now having to look after his father.

Inside his home, the sunlight shone hazily through the windows, shining light on top of the thin layer of dust covering the cabinets. He remembered spending many rainy days staring out, wishing the rain to stop. Wishing he were anywhere except here, trapped inside.

Growing up in the country had resulted in a rather boring childhood, one he had always wished to escape. As soon as he had the chance he had fled to bigger and better places without looking back. Constantly needing to move forward. Only now when he finally turned back did he realise how much it had changed, how he had been the one frozen in time, whilst everyone else moved on without him.

Where once had been a spotless kitchen, cobwebs had slowly begun to creep in. Whilst he could see where his mother had waged war against them, the tide was turning, with the slow march of the cobwebs slowly moving ever forward. As a child he could remember his mother’s persistent cleaning, making sure every surface was immaculate. But she no longer had the energy to fight, nor the eyesight to see the smaller webs, the ones that disappeared in the light. After they were all long gone, the spiders would still spin their webs.

Curled up on a small bed in the corner lay the family cat. His mother began telling him that all he does his sleep now. That he rarely goes outside. At the sound of their voices the old thing slowly lifted its head towards them. He had got the cat for his tenth birthday, a black kitten he had begged and begged his parents for until they finally softened. The years of his youth they had spent together. His best friend. The friend he had abandoned without a second thought. When he had left, the cat had been aging but still spry with a thick coat. Now, his fur clung on, barely covering the almost skeleton body, and his old eyes seemed to look right through him. He had grown up alongside the cat, but it was his mother and father who had grown old with him.

As he moved up the stairs, he could feel the floor groan and creak underneath him. As if simple movement was causing it considerable pain. The carpets had slowly faded and stained over time. What had been a uniform sea of cream was now covered in unsymmetrical stains and marks, like liver spots caused by the passage time and feet.

His bedroom remained mostly untouched, old posters lined the walls that he had long grown out of, a time capsule to his youth. A stark reminder of how the rest of the house had changed in his absence. Unchanged and unlived in whilst the rest of the house had begun its decay, slowly unravelling at the seams as its caretakers could no longer keep up with its demands, could no longer keep up with their own demands.

Finally, after passing through the house he looked upon his parents. Still the same smile, filled with love and care and still the same eyes, but tired, old, wrinkled at the edges. His father’s movement slow and pained. His mother squinting, struggling to see her own sons face. Their hair a matching light grey. His thin on top. Both who used to stand so tall now stood hunched and weathered. Crooked like the hedges outside. In that moment he finally realised that he would never go on the fishing trip with his father.

It filled him with a deep sadness, a time which he could never return to. A time he did not realise was passing until it already past. The houses gradual decay reflected in its owners, in his parents. He had always wanted to grow up, not realising the price of it had to be paid by his parents.

 He had never expected his parents to grow old, until the day he realised it had already happened.