Attic

Upstairs Toward the Blue

The chapel at the college Thomas and I attended had a storage room in its attic. Thomas and I went there one afternoon. We weren’t supposed to, but that made it all the more intriguing. There was enough light coming through a dirty window to see desks, equipment and oddly beds piled haphazardly around the walls. This dusty place made Thomas think of a tale of demon possession. He told stories well with facial expressions that kept my attention. The last sentence of his story, spoken while he looked suspiciously at me, was, “The devil could possess anyone.”

I say that was the last sentence, because at that point in the story, assuming there was more, a beetle, big and ugly, started bouncing up and down on the ceiling high above us. We thought the bug had gone bonkers. Besides, the bouncing was loud enough to stop Thomas from continuing his story with further hints of my being possessed by something or other. We looked up at the bug. Thomas looked at me. He had an idea. While the bug bounced up and down, up and down, Thomas cautiously crossed his two index fingers and raised his arms to target the noisy bug through them. The moment his eyes, the finger cross and that bug lined up so he could get a good shot—right at that moment—the bug soundlessly dropped to the floor.

RUNNING FROM THAT ROOM’S
SPOOKY SPRINGTIME BOUNCING BUG
BEETLE’S TURN TO SMILE

Text: Linked to dVerse Haibun Monday.  Lillian is hosting.  Haibun should have two paragraphs of prose about something that really happened. I can’t forget that bug. There should be a “kigo” on the second line of the haiku representing the season. Mine is “springtime”. The haiku should break in two parts at a “kiregi”. I think mine breaks between springtime and bouncing when attention shifts from us rushing out of that room to the smiling bug.  By way of disclosure, neither of us went back to see if the bug was actually smiling. That’s just what I would do were I that bug and I assume only the prose part has to be factual.

Photos: “Upstairs Toward the Blue”, above, and “Climbing”, below.

Climbing

Author: Frank Hubeny

I enjoy walking, poetry and short prose as well as taking pictures with my phone.

55 thoughts on “Attic”

  1. I get so excited on Haibun Mondays as I get to read all about other people’s lives. I enjoyed this story from your youth, Frank! I’ve never heard of a bouncing bug and I’m not sure I’d like to come across one!

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  7. I learned to tell jokes &/or spooky tales, at a young age. Demons, aliens, & mad men lurked in my shadows. I prefer attic adventures to basement ones.

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    1. Either the attic or the basement can be spooky and we were worried that we might get caught. We’d didn’t expect a bug would catch us. Thank you, Glenn!

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  12. A dark, forbidden attic sounds like the perfect place for scary stories. I don’t know, but I think I would have hit the trail after the bug started doing push ups on the ceiling. Ha, that was a great story! Thanks, Frank

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    1. That was how it happened. I wish I could remember why we wanted to go up there in the first place. Perhaps because we realized it was there. Thank you, V. J.!

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  19. Ohhh! I love spooky stories! And this one is it! I was raised in a house, a pre-Revolutionary War house in central NJ. In the upper hall, there was a plank door, with an iron latch. It was the door to the spooky attic. There was carved on the door, in the upper middle, a Rooster! Funny, because Kohut means Rooster in Czech and Hungarian. It was there from eons ago before we bought the house. That attic had panels in the walls that moved. And we used to play in them, until we found a rat skeleton. That bug reminds me of the garden spiders….black a yellow. If you are brave enough, as my young son was, you can stroke it’s furry back and it bounces up and down in warning. After a while, the spider got used to him. LOL. Good story, Frank. Attics are a constant mystery, regardless the house.

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    1. That’s amazing about the spider especially how it gets used to being touched. I’ve heard some plants that are sensitive and curl up on being touched but once they get used to the touch they no longer curl up. Thank you, Jane!

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  25. He had suffered Long enough
    Years of Pain and Numb were too
    Much A Metal Chain in a Bicycle
    Basket A Forest Road A Tree Picked
    out for if only he could
    Find a Far enough
    Tree and A
    Place for
    Vultures to eat
    him his life would
    mean something for
    it would be consumed for
    something good then he went
    home and his wife awoke the Next
    Day and said oh my that was Strange
    And this was the Middle of the Summer
    by the way as His Wife said that She and
    Her Grandmother Were Hanging Christmas
    Tree Ornaments on that Very Road that she had
    never Spoken of Before and after that He decided
    no matter what
    he would
    Live and
    after I told
    this True Story
    to the Nice Dental
    Hygienist in Her Chair
    Yesterday then She said
    She Felt Chills Running
    Up and Down Her Spine
    Same as i did when my Wife
    told me of her Dream and yes
    two Years Before that Time Suddenly
    Slowed Down in my Perception when Walking
    Around the Block my First and Last Perception of
    that since it sped up suddenly as Perception about
    Two Years before that and this instance Katrina said
    that was weird it feels like Time Slowed Down right at
    the Moment i experienced that Perception with not a word to her..
    It’s True
    Katrina
    is a Guardian of Angels..:)

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    1. I trust my dreams. Sometimes I misinterpret them, but they seem always there for a reason, a kind of communication. Even if we don’t understand the message right away. Thank you, Fred!

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  26. And we’re left smiling along with the bug, now you’ve told its tale. Love the image you paint of all things lining up at the end.

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