wp@glover-humphreys.fsnet.co.uk wrote...

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Which area is your meta4 useful in? About people confining their own futures by constructing boundaries they don't need to have

Which country? Uk

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Grandfather’s Map

‘I remember this’ John said, ‘it used to hang in the hall when I lived here as a kid’. He took the picture frame from his son and turned it around to get a better view. The glass was opaque with years of dust and he had to brush quite hard to clear a little away.

‘What is it Dad?’ Peter said sounding reasonably interested, quite a feat for a fifteen year old.

‘We called it Grandfather’s map’ Dad never used to let me touch it. You look with your eyes not your finger he would bark. It was in the hall, Mum would dust it every day and Dad was always adjusting it to make sure it was perfectly level’. The whole house was like that in those days everything in its place, not a speck of dust to be seen. It stayed like that for years until Mum and Dad got too old to keep up with it. John’s Mum and Dad, Joyce and Jim, were now in Rose View a clean, purpose built residence for the active elderly. Very happy they were too in their new flat, arranging what few possessions they had in perfect order.

It had fallen to John to clear the old family home and put it up for sale. That’s why he was there on a perfect golfing Sunday packing boxes. He’d brought Peter along to keep him company but Peter’s interest had lasted as long as it took to walk from the car to the door and he was now completely bored. ‘Look Peter why don’t you pop down to the shops and buy us some lunch whilst I clean this up’ John said passing Peter some money.

John wandered into the kitchen carrying the picture, to the sound of Peter slamming the front door. In the kitchen he moistened an old rag and began to clean the glass. First stripping the dust off and then the years of stale nicotine that had given the glass an amber tint. As the grime reluctantly receded Grandfathers map came slowly into focus. It looked hand drawn with the ink now faded to whispers of greys and browns like the veins on autumn leaves. The paper looked brittle and was buckled and creased as if it had been forced into the frame and now struggled vainly for breathing room.

Although faded it was still exactly as John recalled. He vividly remembered his Grandfather pointing out all the landmarks of his life, where he’d been born, gone to school, robbed apples, stole his first kiss, and started a family. There were all there drawn out for all to see. The only time John had seen his Grandfather angry was that day his Dad had hung the framed map on the wall ‘That’s no way to live a life’, the old man had muttered.

As John’s daydream faded he decided the glass was as clean as it was going to get and looked for a box to pack it in. As he gazed around, the map slipped through his wet fingers and crashed to the tiled floor, glass flying everywhere. The brittle old frame burst at the joints, leaving the map lying in a bed of splintered glass in the middle of the kitchen floor. Shaking off the glass, John retrieved the map and laid it out on the kitchen table.

To his surprise the paper looked brighter, the creases and cracks visible when in the frame appeared to have healed. The colours also seemed brighter; the glass was dirtier than I thought John mused. John breath caught in his throat as he realised colour was slowly returning to the page, as if the years were rolling back. Before his eyes faded grey became vibrant blue, dirty browns turned burning orange, rust transformed to red. The pace was also quickening like time-lapse film of flowers opening, or snow melting. It was as if spring was chasing winter across the page.

As he watched his Grandfather’s life redrawn on the page John noticed for the first time that the map spilled over the edges. With nervous fingers he turned the map over, half expecting the ink to run onto his hands. He saw that it was tightly folded in on its self. Pealing out the folds of paper John uncovered his Dad’s life, mapped out in precise strokes, along with uncles and aunts. More unfolding revealed his own life and there were his son’s. The most recent roots were the most vibrant; the spring greens, violets and yellows pulsed eagerly with life. Finally when the map covered the entire kitchen table, edges of clean, cool, inviting white paper came into view. As john stood back to get a better view, the aroma of Sarsons warned him that Peter had returned from his foraging trip.

‘That’s my school’ Peter’s chippy splutter broke the silence as he pointed at the map. Then before John could stop him Peter tugged the map to get a better view. Without warning the paper parted as if perforated. The sound was more a gleeful sign than the rip John expected. Peter peered intently for a moment at his section of the map and then folded it up and stuffed it into the back pocket of his jeans.

Quite a few years passed before John saw that piece of paper again. When he did it was no surprise to notice that it was quite a bit larger that he remembered. There it was spread out on the grass in the back garden of Peter’s house with the grandchildren walking over it. Their little pink toes tracing the lines of Daddy’s life giggling as they went, getting even more excited when the relived the short bright roots of their own lives. They argued about this and that re-working as they went what should have happened, what did happen and what they wished had happened. Woes turned to happiness, defeats to victory.

Occasionally when a dark memory was re-earthed Granddad or Daddy or both, were required to hold brave little hands as they re-explored, re-experienced and transformed those memories. Dark brooding reds turning to pastel pinks as brave toes inched forward step by step. The best game of all was being whisked into the air and flown down the twists and turns of the map, starting as far back as they could go in the family. Passing in an instant through the lives of Granddad’s Granddad, yesterday’s aunts and today’s uncles until finally flying head long into their own future in fits of laughter and with eyes wide with excitement. Shouts of again, again only stopping when everyone was too exhausted to continue.

John’s own map had a more serene life these days sitting as it did in the sideboard drawer. He got it out occasionally to retrace a particular day or moment that had come to mind, as they do from time to time from who know where. This was happening less and less as the years past as there were fewer and fewer old wrinkles in need of some love and affection before being eased into the past. Now and again John would wonder how many people there were with their maps bound in neat, tight frames. Frames that captured a past moment in their own lives or perhaps their parent’s lives, this moment forced to take on a significance it did not want or deserve. These people unaware that behind the front sheet they had put on display the rest of their lives were still being drawn out. By obscuring most of their maps these people were unable to learn the learnings of the past and missed the joy of repainting in bright colours the dark bye ways of their lives.

John was also sure that at that very moment all across the world glass was cracking, frames were splitting and maps were breathing once again. He knew that many people were having that feeling of exhilaration and anticipation he had first felt in his parent old house when he had laid an old map on a kitchen table to get a better look.

Thanks Paul N Humphreys.