This is in answer to the daily post from 13/1/13. Would love to know what you think, and how you would describe where you are sat. This is the premise:
Explore the room you’re in as if you’re seeing it for the first time. Pretend you know nothing. What do you see? Who is the person who lives there?
One sneaky glance, what do I see
At first glance, I don’t see anything unusual, just looks like an average living room in an average flat. The sofa splits the room and separates living room and kitchen, instead of a coffee table there is a sleek black circular table, covered in letters and cards from family and friends. There is a small flat screen television in the corner of the room, and in the bottom of the unit on which the television sits is a pile if of papers and magazines and a box of various cards, waiting to be sent as and wen there is need to,
Suddenly there is a vibration and an intrusive sound which refuses to stop. Startled, I wonder what it is, until the person who lives there tips up the noisy box and a few tablets slide out.
Next to the television is the laptop, screen broken from one too many falls, and a digital radio sits, lifeless, on the unit waiting to be charged, next to the ironing basket with a few clothes waiting to be ironed. Next to that, are many more clothes and bed sheets, haphazardly place on the airier. This takes my eye into the kitchen which makes up the other half of the sitting room. The kitchen too, is crowded. In the taller unit at this far end sit a silver fridge and freezer. Next to that a few things are sat on the unit. On a cake rack sits a fresh bunch of bananas and a loaf of bread. A small weighing sale sits underneath that. Next to the rack is a dried up bunch of Christmas flowers that have seen better days, and a bright red bowl of soup.
Finally I notice a few other things about the unit, how it is shorter that your average kitchen unit, with an induction cooker hob set into it. At the back of the hob sits a hot water bottle in a spotty cover, and a book of one pot recipes, a small frying pan sat just in front of it. Underneath part of that unit are a full small grey rubbish bin and an almost empty blue tub which serves as laundry basket. The next unit is much emptier, some would say tidier, containing only a black flask and empty plastic container, along with part of a small food processor.
The rest of the kitchen is more conventional, the small dish rack full of clean dishes, as is the draining rack, the basin empty. The washing machine, with a full drum sits underneath it, and the silver microwave, silent, on the top of the next unit, next to a strange looking kettle and a silver toaster. Finally my eye sports the oven and yet another couple of cupboards. Such a lot to take in.
None of those say much about the person who sits in the room, silent and half asleep.. A smile on their face, though it does not reach tired eyes. I look at the person more closely, wondering why they’re sat in a big clunky wheelchair. What happened to them to leave them that way? I’m lost in my thoughts as I look into the room, unusually quiet. I think of the room again, which certainly can’t be described as ‘tidy’. Cozy perhaps, or lived in’. There’s a peacefulness in the room not often found. Just as quietly as I looked into the room, I turn around, slipping out unnoticed, leaving the smiling lady to her slumber.