Chest of Wonders

by R J Dent

His heart pounding hard, Stephen opened the lid of the wooden chest and looked inside.

          Everything else around him – the slight chill of the large, but badly-lit loft, the musty smell, the brown solidity of the rafters, the roof lining that smelled (and looked) like old potato sacks, the roughly-rendered brick chimney-breast, the cobwebs, the items of no-longer-needed-or-used furniture, the bags of steadily mildewing clothes, the scuttlings and occasional cheeps of the birds, possibly martins, nesting under the eaves – suddenly faded away to nothing as his attention and concentration zeroed in – like the beam of the black rubber-coated torch he held in his right hand – on to the contents of the old wooden chest.

          Paper!

          His initial feeling was one of disappointment, but as his eyes took in the many different coloured cardboard document wallets, the stacks of notebooks, the collection of diaries, the envelopes with the name MR ROGER BROOKS and an address typed on the front, Stephen’s emotion changed to one of over-whelming curiosity. It took him a few moments to realize that he had made an exciting and possibly very important discovery.

          He sat down so that he was sideways on to the front of the chest and leaned back against the solidity of the chimneybreast, noticing, but not really caring, that the cold laminate of the tongue-and-groove loft flooring penetrated his jeans, chilling his buttocks and the backs of his thighs. Suddenly he was nervous. Suddenly he got goose bumps up his arms. Suddenly, he felt he needed to defecate badly. He waited for a second or two and sure enough, the nervousness and the goose bumps – and the need to defecate – went away and were replaced almost immediately by a cool, almost ironic, sense of euphoria. Stephen laughed softly and then relaxed. This always happened. He knew himself well. Every time he stood on the brink of a life-changing discovery, he felt a momentary rush of fear, followed by an intense surge of adrenalin. This was immediately followed by a sense of mild detachment and self-awareness that usually lasted a couple of days.