Heaven underground.

“Can you shut up; I am trying to watch something here.”

“MOM! He is not giving me the remote.”

“Michael it’s your turn to do the dishes.”

Another fight, a blessing of quarantine. This scenario was pretty much normal in this household since the announcement of lockdown. Kids fighting, yelling, playing. It was chaos in the house.

But if we move upstairs in the bedroom at the far end of the corridor, there is a closed-door with the sign that says “READING: don’t disturb”.

We will land in the room of Sahar the silent kid of this house, an introvert. But she is not reading, she gave that up a long time ago when she found out her siblings cannot shut up. Instead of that she is now deep cleaning and re-arranging her room.

She was sitting with headphones in her ear drowning out all the noise. There on the floor were piles of books, she was sorting them out, looking through them, she was living a nostalgic moment of when she first read those books. She was remembering all her friends from those books.

"ah! I made a big mess out of this room, life was good when I had this whole house to myself" She exclaimed putting the book in her hand on one of the piles.

She then stands up with hands on her hips monitoring the bookshelf and space beside her writing desk;

“Let’s move you, you’ve been sitting here all my life,” she said animatedly to the bookshelf as if it was a human being.

She pushed the shelf away from the wall with all her strength. THUD it was a heavy old-fashioned wooden shelf. she only managed to move it a bit away from the wall.

“WOAH!!” she exclaimed as the wall behind the shelf was covered in dust and cobwebs.

She started cleaning them and BANG chipboard fell from the wall, picking it up carefully she moved it out of the way, behind it was a door, made out of wood with an antique gold handle. Surprised she looked around; to make sure no one saw that although she was alone. she then closed the room, shut the curtains. Excitement plastered on her face, she took her phone and went through the behind the shelf It wasn't that difficult for she was really skinny and off she goes through the door.

Behind the trap door was a tunnel with stone walls leading towards a dark staircase. She looked back towards the silhouette of the door and turned towards her phone. She lit the torch, took a deep breath and started descending.

The staircase was small and it was leading to a small room with another similar door that she left behind and on the other, the side was a tunnel-like path.

Sahar walked towards the door she touched the knob and twisted it, she had to put a lot of effort into pulling it open, behind that door there was a similar cardboard-like she found upstairs. 

“This must lead to our Basement!” she exclaimed in a whisper as if speaking loudly would break the atmosphere.

tip -tap-tip-tap

She proceeded walking carefully towards the tunnel, it was somehow darker than the staircase making her steps go slow. A shiver ran through her spine as but, like the brave girl she was; she kept moving.

The tunnel was long possibly leading out of her house.

“Don’t turn, don’t turn, don’t turn” she kept repeating those words moving through the tunnel, one hand holding the phone the other touching the wall giving her a sense of support.

The tunnel ended on another door. She takes her trembling hand towards the knob. Hesitantly she turned it open. It was stuck she pulled again but it was of no help. She placed her mobile on the floor and pulled the door again giving her all to it. The door sprang open making her stumble from the force.

A glare of light came making her squint her eyes, she moved a step forward adjusting to the light in the room she looked around.

The front wall was lined with books. There were comfy old chairs and a coffee table in the middle of this room, on one wall there were maps and on another a desk full of scattered stuff. There was also a miracle down here a giant potted plant. Dirty mirrors of different shapes and sizes hanging from the roof. And if you look at the corners and the top of things you will notice Dust and cobwebs in a very protective layer around this stuff as if no one had been here in decades. All this bathing in sunlight that was here mysteriously flooding from the tubes coming out of the roof.

“I can’t believe this” she whispered Enchanted by the glory of this secret room, Sahar moves in the room touch the spine of books leaving a trail of her fingerprints, her eyes moving around taking it all in.

She smiles, spinning from the excitement it was her own secret place with secrets of its own.

A few days later...

There she was sitting on an old couch, her legs propped up on a coffee table filled with stacks of worn-out books. Besides those books lay her mobile with an article about solar tubes propped open.  She was lost in her thoughts scribbling on her diary away from everything in the room bathed with sunlight, filled with the History flowing in the air from those who were here before her, some untold and some forgotten stories in the memories of the walls. The aroma of moisture filled the air. Droplets dancing on a single potted plant that managed to survive underground thanks to the leaking sealing.

She leaves the diary open on the table and moves to put the books back on their shelves. If we look around this room had been dusted while we were gone, no more cobwebs and no more dirt. The mirrors were shinning and the light was a little brighter than before. A few more additions were also made of pillows and blanket and loads of quarantine snacks.  There were also some cardboard boxes with documents and scrolls. That she needs to sort out in her old, not so noise-proof room, but with a secret like this no noise is distracting.

And if you look closely on the diary it said:

Mysteries of heaven underground.

Logical yet enchanting.