Short story inspired by museum visit

I have always been resourceful. That is why when my dead Grandmother left us with her old china, I begged for it to solely be inherited by me. With this china I had big plans. Appreciating art- although I do not consider myself an artist- is a pastime one could only imagine to be awakening to the mind, senses and the soul (apparently). But I'm not sad or poetic enough to be that person. Mostly I just like to enjoy art because patterns and designs are easy on the eye and I admire the simplicity in looking at something beautiful without having to understand why it is so or how it came to be.

Four thirty seven PM is when we were given the morose news that unfortunately Grandma Olive had passed away. Truth is, she had always been a bitch and the family were all in a secret mutual agreement of this but she was ill so 'couldn't help it' when she did something awful. Like that time she put her false dentures in my Coca Cola, or when she told my mum that she was a mistake. Ah, sweet reminiscence. She had a remarkable set of china plates though so my forgiveness is granted, RIP Grandma Olive, forever in our hearts blah blah blah. Now it is four forty two PM and the plates are in my possession; plan already concocted in my head. 

There are sixteen plates in total, each in an immaculate condition. Their edges are refined and curl up almost imperceptibly. When I look at these satisfying edges, small glints of the light refract into my eyes, temporarily blinding me from their delicate architecture- but I continue to analyse them in awe them because I am a perfectionist and I love that the plates are not splintered or broken in any way, canvases of radiance. Although there are patterns on these plates, it is merely around the edges in a crimson and gold entanglement. The pattern is not intricate but is just as powerful in its own candor manner. Only millimetres away from my vision are the plates now, but I am still questioning the impalpable serenity of them when-

"Chels," I am startled by mother’s crow-like call of my name, "maybe stop acting up like... this... before dad comes home. You know he's taking crap from his boss and he won't like your shit spread out across the kitchen."

"Dad's with a blonde woman, remember. Not at work" I retorted. 

Sallow and yellow in the face, mum retrieved the cigarette from behind her ear that she had planned to smoke, lit up and left me basking in my victory. She was discontent with my remark, I think. It’s the eighty seventh time I have informed her of Dad’s affair with the blonde woman who wears a short pencil skirt at his office, and Mum didn’t even believe me the first. The draught from the back door she has just opened agitates my naked arms, the thread like hairs on them stood alert and impatient. When it is cold, arm hairs tend to do this because air is a bad conductor of heat. Thus when it is cold, erector muscles connected to your hair contracts, standing them on end and trapping air between the layers to conserve as much heat as possible. It is for this reason that I prefer to hibernate inside throughout most of the seasons and that I am going to take my china plates to my bedroom where I intend to nourish them and keep them safe.

To carry each plate individually upstairs took me sixteen times ascending and sixteen times descending the stairs. The staircase consists of thirteen steps which means I climbed four hundred and sixteen stairs altogether, which is an even number and is oddly satisfying. My bedroom is a box with whitewashed walls, some cheap furniture from IKEA and a camp bed tucked into one of its corners. It lacks personality, doesn’t offend and has no opinions or objections which are perhaps why I seek solace in it. Or did seek solace in it. All I am going to do is mount the art I have acquired from my dead grandmother onto my wall. That is the ingenious plan. The brilliance of it is that it is so simple yet its impact will be entirely colossal. Usually I am not comfortable with change but in this instance, I am.

As I am affixing the sixteenth and final plate to the nail I have hammered into my wall, there is a constant pick pick pick sound from beneath my room. Dad should be home just about now but he is sure to knock because that’s his routine. At nine past five his old Toyota chugs into the driveway, then he unfastens his seatbelt, puts the stereo in the glovebox and knocks on the door at five eleven. Out of curiosity and unease, I reassure that we are not being burgled and peer from the landing. The door is slightly ajar before my father emerges inconspicuously from behind it. Without his realisation of my eyes upon him, he saunters quietly past the living room and upstairs, his head down all the while until he reaches the last step where he is confronted by my feet. Then my legs. Then my shoulders. And finally he meets the expression, I’m not quite sure of what, on my face.

Grey and dishevelled, his hair is untidily arranged in a position that it was not before he left for work this morning. There is a lingering aroma, trying to evaporate, that smells sweet and bitter like a woman’s perfume- but it’s not the one that mum wears. He isn’t wearing a tie either and If I correctly recall, which mostly I do, he did have one this morning. I remember because it had circles and crosses on it that I used to pretend to play noughts and crosses with. But I can’t associate that with the tie anymore because it is about to be replaced by something new. Now I remember why I do not like change.

“Mum, I told you I wasn’t lying.” I say. She appears at the stairs phantom-like, pasty and thin against the dimly lit hallway shadowed by winter’s sombre nature. Unlike me she carries a heavy expression on her face at this unfortunate sight.

Shortly after this, I feel that I am supposed to leave before there is an eruption of spite, malice, bad language and possibly violence.  This is inevitably going to happen so my bedroom retreat is a safe haven for now. I am counting down to detonation before I switch on my radio. China girl by David Bowie is droning alongside the ruckus downstairs:

I could escape this feeling, with my China girl

I feel a wreck without my, little China girl

I hear her heart beating, loud as thunder

Saw they stars crashing

I'm a mess without my, little China girl

Then a resonating “FUCK YOU!” followed by the slam of the door that oscillates through the entire house, leaving seven out of my sixteen china plates in a pile on my carpet.

I am not bitter. I am not resentful. I am not angry. I am just excruciatingly neglectful of anything that my brain tries firing at me.

And then I let go. I should feel pretty pissed off but it’s too hard to be angry when there is such beauty still to be discovered. Sometimes you see it all at once, overwhelming. And then you see the remaining china plates ample on the wall and breathe. And beauty in simplicity can be awakening, if only you should seek to find it.