A Journey Around My Room

For this exercise, I chose to write about my room in my home in Essex. It’s the room that holds the most memories, and while the ones that stick out are largely negative or make me feel quite sad about the things I have lost, they are embedded in every part of the room where I have slept for longer than I have slept anywhere else.

A Journey Around my Room

Through the bright, white door, the generic cream carpet, with black paint stains from years of angry creations, is surrounded by blood red walls. The occasional white patch where the paint has cracked dots the room. Hanging from the white ceiling, a dusty orange shade covers the eco-lightbulb. Not far from that, in the corner over the head of the bed, two dozen pieces of greyed tack, from glow-in-the-dark smiley faces long gone, sticks fast. Nine years of dirt covers the outside of the glass the window cleaners can’t get to, what with the conservatory below. The inside is spattered with bluish-grey candle wax from blowing too hard. The window is framed by a dusty windowsill and the bright yellow curtains that on bright summer mornings bathe the room in a warm orange glow.

On the right hand side of the window sits an old computer desk made from fake Ikea-pine. The broken rollers on the keyboard tray prevent it being used for its intended purpose. Instead, it houses books, stuffed toys, games, and shoeboxes containing years of old letters and memories. On the top there is an old table-lamp, photo frames with pictures of old friends, and a large collection of wooden African wildlife. Elephants stand side by side with lions and giraffes and antelopes. On top of the largest elephant – black and shiny, with real ivory tusks – sits a small, white teddy bear. On the inner walls is an assortment of glued-on-and-ripped-off post-it notes with faded quotes from books and songs, and an old postcard from a school trip to the Tate Modern in year ten. Between the desk and the wall, a rolled-up bundle of posters sits secured by an elastic band, a snippet of lyrics from Stairway to Heaven barely visible. There are still faint dust marks on the red paint from where they used to be, before they were taken down for a redecoration that still hasn’t happened.

Opposite the desk, a pine wardrobe sits side by side with a matching chest of drawers, both filled with old clothes, never to be worn again, but kept, just in case. Down one side of the wardrobe, irremovable scrawls in gold and black permanent marker speak of part time “loves”, eight years past, crossed out and rewritten half a dozen times. Blu-tack stains from posters of famous teenage crushes – Michael Owen the favourite, eventually replaced with the flavour of the week time and time again. On top of the wardrobe, in the dark, cobwebbed corner, more shoeboxes, bags of stuffed toys and books, along with a ream of A3 paper that will never get used.

The chest of drawers, two small, two long, is covered with make-up stains and pen-marks. An old TV that you can’t watch sits on top of a not-quite-so-old DVD player that doesn’t work either. A couple of dusty mugs filled with never-worn jewellery sit against the wall and a pot of 50 pencils marked “WHSmith £2″ will never get used. The two top drawers are filled with perfume and old make-up that’s lost favour, and Christmas junk that’s never been opened. An old, square mirror hangs above, dirty and streaked. Between the drawers and the wall is a red beach spade from a college trip to Norfolk.

The bed, along the opposite wall, is no longer covered with the owner’s bedsheets, or even their pillows and duvet. The white flowery sheets for guest visits don’t match the rest of the room. Over the bottom duvet lies another one, covered in black and brown cat hair. The cats had moved in since the girl had moved out. The wooden frame is covered in black paint and pen, the secret hiding place between the mattress and the frame still conceals a yellow plastic lighter – a lasting remnant of teary nights and deliberate pain. Beneath the bed, plastic boxes filled with books and old crap, dozens of pairs of shoes that still fit but will never see feet again. More books are piled against the boxes, in full view. Gatsby and Jane and Fiver, all lying together.

On the floor next to the bed, several CD racks hold tunes by Dylan, Hendrix, Cohen and Led Zeppelin, along with more recent trends, in what was once an alphabetical arrangement. Against the opposite wall, lying against the radiator that fills the gap between the wardrobe and the desk, sits a mahogany and black leather dining chair, a giant stuffed bear bought for a charity case takes the seat.

As you close the white door inside the blood-red room, a brazen black and pink poster dares you to care. The slogan – “Whatever”. Make of that what you will.