[2] Dancing hoodie

Inspiration is found in the most unexpected places.

It was rainy Tuesday afternoon. I open my closet to find my rain coat. On the right side of rain coat, I find my old hoodie; my childhood memory. I remember something. Rushing to my desk, I pick up my pen.

The nervous man saw his trembling hand reached on the handle of the door. He’d come close to delude himself that the handle got to be lowered. Looking down on it, he just fiddled with it, but after showing short glance with decided mind, he could now watch the past memories which had been forgotten for ten years. In a very short time that he fully opened the door, he brought the cherishable memories from his deepest mind.

He first just put his head inside the door. He slowly inhaled and sniffed to smell the friendly atmosphere inside the room.  Everything was placed just same as when he left the room 10 years ago. The cassette player, the dressing table, the ceramics he usually put his robot inside were all there. This made the man in the black suit to overlap his memories that he longed for numerous times and cry for his past foolish choice. Now, the only way he could do for his parents is just putting the flower on the floor. The pure white color of it seemed to be the sole error in the entire room. Staring the spotlessly white flower in semiconscious state, he found himself being able to hear some noise - very familiar song but hard to remember what it is. He just let his ears fully open to the songs and found out the song is the Waltz that his parents loved to dance with. He once abhorred his parents to dance with the old-fashioned songs in his teenager time – but now for him, the only left wish is ironically to dance with his parents, holding their hands, smiling with them, and feeling their movements among the music. Albeit he regretted and hold back his sobs, his dead parents could never offer the man the last opportunity to dance with them. To escape from the abysmal desperation, he thought he should stop the music which didn’t know where it comes. The man lifted his head to find out where the music starts. Then his eyes suddenly caught one awkward scene; his mother’s favorite hoodie was dancing. He couldn’t believe the situation he faced but just accepted by assuming that his extreme sadness made him to fall in the illusion. He gazed at the hoodie for a few minutes.

As time passes, he could slowly, slowly realize there’s a pattern in the movement of the hoodie – it was Waltz! As the hoodie moves little bit, the scent of his mother faintly dispersed through the air in the room. That scent made him to stand up unconsciously and hold the arms of the hoodie. He just got to follow the movement of the hoodie. Dancing Waltz with it, for a short moment, he thought maybe his mother is now in this hoodie and comes to console and forgive him for his faults and hug him. He just laughed out, since he thought it was totally absurd idea. The man just let his body to follow the movement of It and feel the music itself, but failed to catch the scene that the sunshine through the windows shines back of his beautiful mother dancing with him.

I look out the window. The rain has stopped. I put down my pen.