The Storage Unit

Barb and Art Rogers walked towards Griffin’s Storage Unit Rentals from their car, arguing like they usually did. They had been married twelve years and although the marriage had enjoyed good spots of relative harmony, lately it seemed that one battle followed another. It was Saturday and this day began like other bad days of recent note.

“We had better not be wasting our time with this, Barb,” Art said. “I can think of many more worthwhile things to do on my day off than this.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Art!” Barb yelled. “You know how much my aunt meant to me. If we don’t do this today, then they’re going to throw out whatever is in the storage unit.”

Barb had received a notice from her late aunt Chelsea’s lawyer nearly three months before, notifying her about the inheritance. 

The trouble was that aunt Chelsea had been a notorious hoarder in the latter part of her life, and it was a good bet that the storage unit she had rented would contain much of the same junk that made her apartment into a disgusting pigsty.

Art had fought Barb almost every day since she received the notice about the storage unit, believing that it would not be worth driving three hours to claim their dubious gift from aunt Chelsea. Barb had finally won out when she threatened to leave Art for good and move in with a sister who lived on the other side of the country.

The couple walked into the rental office and signed the appropriate papers, after providing the legal document and identifications. It was unit number eighty-six that held all aunt Chelsea’s remaining worldly possessions. 

With key in hand, Bev Rogers took the storage unit lock in her left hand and inserted the key. The lock sprang open effortlessly. After removing the lock, Art stepped in and pulled the steel curtain up. The stale smell was the first thing they both noticed.

Barb found a light switch on the wall and everything came into view. The twenty foot by twenty foot unit was chock full with every imaginable item that one could expect to see in a storage unit–chairs, magazines, newspapers, books, rugs, lamps, puzzles, and boxes of every size. 

“What a freakin’ mess!” groaned Art.

“Well, we’re here now,” Barb replied. “We might as well do what we came for.”

And so the couple dived into examining the contents of the unit.

Barb went to one side of the container and Art predictably went to the opposite end.

The first thing Art encountered was a lamp with a tattered shade. “Stupid ass old bag,” he muttered. “What could possess her to keep this piece of crap?” Art put it aside, wiped his hand on his jeans in disgust and reached out for a medium size box.

Upon opening the box, Art immediately saw some old Time  magazines. He took them out to look deeper. There was a large yellow envelope next. What’s in here? he wondered to himself.

Art opened the flap and slid out the contents. They were photos. But what he couldn’t believe was that they were photos of him and a prostitute he had been with over three years ago!

Art’s jaw dropped in complete astonishment. 

Sure enough, the photos showed Art in bed with the lady of the night in various compromising positions. 

How were these taken? he thought. I’m sure I closed the curtains. I was super paranoid about anyone watching and took every precaution! How did these photos end up in here?

Art took the photos, shoved them back into the envelope, and tucked the photos under an old toaster he noticed nearby.

“Anything interesting yet?” Art heard Barb call out from the other side of the container.

“Uhhh, no, Barb. Just junk so far,” Art answered. He hoped to God that Barb wouldn’t detect the nervousness in his voice. “Did you find anything?”

“Not yet,” his wife called back, oblivious to the dark miracle that Art had uncovered and the heart attack that was creeping up on him as a result.

Meanwhile, Barb was up to her elbows in a box full of dirty glassware. 

Why in the world would aunt Chelsea keep these? Barb wondered. These glasses are not even from the same set. 

Picking up a wine glass that was sullied by a large crack, Barb noticed a piece of paper under it. She naturally lifted it to see what it was and the shock nearly made her fall over from her sitting position.

It was her credit card statement of six years ago that displayed the $500 she had paid to the Psychic Network! Art had never found out the money she wasted calling that company. It was during a stint when he was stressed out at work and needed to do a great deal of overtime to impress his boss. 

For Barb, calling the nice psychics at the Psychic Network had become an obsession. She felt so much better when they comforted her and assured that the future was rosy.

How did this statement get here? Barb asked herself in bewilderment. 

No matter how, Barb was determined to keep the matter a secret from her husband. She placed the statement to her left, under her jacket. She would dispose of it later. Gathering her breath, her shaky hands pushed further items aside in a search for something valuable.

It was Art’s turn once again to face the music. He moved a large rug to one side that had once been pretty valuable but now was stained and even burned in a couple of spots. A chair was next. The chair was made of cheap wood and was missing a leg. 

The next thing Art uncovered was found inside the top drawer of a bedside table. He had to look at it twice to believe what he was seeing and then his blood ran cold. It was a school picture of a boy he had known in junior high–Kenny Stadler.

Art and Kenny had been hiking in the hills near the town they grew up in. After reaching the top of a hill and sitting for a rest on a precipice, Kenny had started to tease him about the lousy impression Art had made on a girl they both liked. Kenny even bragged that he would be going on a date with sweet Brenda that Friday night:

“It’s no wonder Brenda wants me–I’m much better looking than you, Art. I’ll be in her pants before eleven o’clock tomorrow night! What a time I’ll have!”

Not thinking, Art pushed Kenny hard. Losing his balance, Kenny toppled over and fell off the cliff. The fifty foot fall and rocky land below ensured an immediate and messy death for Kenny.

Since Art was only fourteen at the time and had no previous dealings with the law, the police ruled the death as accidental. But Art carried the guilt of that incident with him the rest of his life, not telling anyone how Kenny had fallen by his push.

Art couldn’t believe it! There, as large as life, Kenny was making a reappearance in the most unlikeliest of places–aunt Chelsea’s junk unit. Art gingerly put the picture of Kenny into the envelope with the adulterous ones he had discovered earlier. Was this really happening?

A half hour inside the storage unit had passed since they last spoke, but Art and Barb Rogers weren’t keeping track of time. Each was lost strolling down their respective memory lanes.

Barb pushed through boxes of toys and stuffed animals. They were filthy and would never brighten a child’s day ever again. Then she came upon a photo album. It was mostly empty she noticed, that is until she turned to one of the last pages in it. 

There sat a picture of her childhood friend, Sally Richards. Again, Barb wondered how in the world this picture ended up in her aunt Chelsea’s storage unit–much less in her possession– but after finding the credit card statement, she started to suspect the supernatural was at play. 

The picture came from a time when the two friends had visited a local carnival. No one from either of their families had come with them, so there was no rational explanation as to why the photo should exist in the first place. 

The picture showed a forsaken Sally, staring off in the distance. Barb remembered that moment as she left her friend in order to run off with two of the popular girls from her school; they went to ride through the haunted house, which Sally was too afraid to visit.

To Barb’s exquisite horror and guilt, she was to learn a few years later that because she abandoned Sally at the carnival, the girl was lured into a trailer belonging to one of the staff. It was Sally’s fate there to become a sexual abuse victim. This eventuality had plagued Barb ever since, grinding away at her conscience.

Tears began to flow down Barb’s face. 

“Art, let’s go,” Barb said.

“Uhh, just a few more minutes,” Art requested. “I think there might be, uh, some things here worth keeping.”

Barb was silent and considered what she had done with her life. Was she really a good person? Was she even better than Art? 

Art, still at the other end of the storage unit, carefully moved items around to get a better look. There was a box of shoes and sneakers. He was afraid of what he might find next, but Art had always been the sort of person who was determined to know the worst. 

If you’ve got more epiphanies in store for me, whoever or whatever you are, he wished, then show me. I ain’t afraid.

At that moment, Art uncovered a piece of paper. It turned out to be a letter from his father. His father had died in the Korean conflict in the early ‘50’s. This letter was dated June 23, 1952. It read:

Dear Art,

We’re going into battle today, and so I wanted to write to say how proud I am of you. If I don’t make it back from this war, I trust you’ll take care of your mother and two sisters. You’ll be the man of the house. I love you!

Dad

Art had never known of the existence of such a letter, nor could he discover any reason why it should be in this godforsaken junk unit. All he could do was to weep silently and hope that his wife didn’t hear him.

For two more hours, Art and Barb separately unearthed mementos, documents, and photos from the junk heap that had no earthly reason to be there. The items reminded them of positive and negative events that had taken place in their lives; all told they were prompted to feel regrets and triumphs for the decisions they had made. 

When the time came for them to leave, they each left with an armful of acquisitions. Neither asked what the other had taken. It was a private decision, they understood. But the experience had humbled them. Something supernatural or magical had guided them here to educate them about their lives. They learned their lesson and left the storage unit building with a newfound sense of hope for their marriage.

The next day, the remaining contents of aunt Chelsea’s unit was brought to the city dump and incinerated. Barb and Art’s marriage, however, had been reignited by the visit to the container and the couple spent the next twenty years in relative marital bliss.