In the Attic

The last thing Gen wanted to be doing with her Saturday afternoon was sorting through the remnants of her great aunt's possessions. Although her aunt was her namesake, Genevieve had been a very eccentric and cloistered woman. She had never married, lived alone and rarely came into the light of day. She had also been a hoarder. When she passed away, the house she lived it was filled room by room with everything she had collected over the years. Papers were piled up on every surface, candy wrappers and half-finished crafting projects - like an afghan she had started to knit but never finished. It lay across the couch, frayed at the edges with the remaining yarn and needles still attached to it. Genevieve died - not suddenly - and everyone saw it coming - she was old, but no one was very sad about it.

Gen's mother dug through the jewelry with wild abandon, looking for something valuable more than something she would even want to wear. She wanted to sell it.

Somehow, Gen got assigned to the attic. By the time she made her way up there, she could barely breathe with all the dust collected in the small space. A mannequin stood by the one small window, blocking out the little bit of light that filtered through. Sunshine shone on the dust moving around in the air like small insects in the air - if it didn't cause her to sneeze so much it might be considered beautiful in its own strange way. It was difficult for Gen to move very far in the attic without tripping over something.