The morning was quiet, the birds were still sleeping and the seas early morning fog hung on the lips of the dune grass like the foam from a latte. In the wee hours of the morning the world had stood still in an instant and the shore seemed to know.

    A sandy surfboard fresh from the beach is leaning against the peeling paint of the old green garage. The smell of salt still clings to the surface of the board like a glue holding sand to bare feet. The garage sits at the edge of a dirt driveway decorated with tire marks from an old rusted truck and a small trailer held together with pain and a little bit of hope. The drive winds through over grown wildflowers, and encroaching trees leading to the dirt lane with a single mailbox. The paint was chipped and weathered and hard to read, sitting white and rusted from salt and time. The hinges to the door are so warped that no force could close the door all the way, not that anyone really tried. It didn’t matter the state of the mailbox, or the cottage lane, the keeper of the cottage got very little mail anyway. In a little coastal village like this mail was more of a chore than a joy. A task of retrieval and maturity, not excitement and joy. The mail carrier rarely found time to venture out quite this far. Now the instead the little rusted box stood as a marker of time, rather than use. The chipped and faded red letters faintly reading Aldridge 713. You see in a place like this where the birds were louder than the cars and the people so few that each seemed to know the names of the next, the mail boat only came once or twice a week making retrieval a weekly task instead of a daily one. The boats captain rarely venturing much further than the docks also left the little box as nothing more than a memory. Most people never got mail in their boxes, but no one took the boxes down either.

    The yard of the little blue cottage was quiet; the creatures that inhabited the outside continued about their business as if things were business as usual, and to them it probably was. They probably knew no different that day or any other that the story had changed without anyone knowing it. The song had a new tune that played in a different key. Time had become a thief to one and memory to another, but you see to them, this day was like any other. A skunk emerging from behind the trash cans that sat beside the green garage with a yawn and a stretch. He slowly waddles into the overgrown grass, returning to his den for a nap after a long night of digging for grubs and mealworms in the bushes and brush that fill the tattered white fence. His belly full and as he prepares to nap the day away in the safety of his home as he would on any other morning. A cardinal splash’s about in the crumbling bird bath in front of the large white porch. The edges of the bath have begun to crumble, and the beautiful flower engravings around the outside of the bowl have become caked with dirt and moss, but the little bird seems not to care. He splashes and twists singing a little tune as he goes. He is perfectly happy splashing around in the collected rainwater in the crumbling bath in the overgrown yard on a day to him that is like any other.

A family of lawn gnomes placed like they were dancing around the base of the bird bath have begun to fade with time. Strands of grass grown up around the gnome’s tiny stone legs. Their paint is chipping off their little hats and the tips of their boots. Loyal little soliders in a once loved garden that have stood the test of time.

    The porch matched the garage with peeling paint and weather worn wood, once bright white has grown almost gray. The frosted screen door hung by what seemed to be breath of hope on rusted hinges. The salt air rusted everything it touched faster than time could have managed to build it new. A sneaky little substance that builds and destroys in the same breath. Sand greets guests when walking through the front door on to aging wooden slats. Tiny grains having fallen from happy feet returning home from the beaches. Sand is a funny thing, hidden in plain sight and between the cracks of the floorboards where the broom could never find it but clean feet always seemed to. The microscopic grains had become one with the old cottage at the end of the long dirt lane.

The house stilled smelled like morning oatmeal, cinnamon and maple syrup clinging to the dusty drapes like a small child around the ankles of their mother. The remaining oats cemented to the inside of the now cold pot on the stove, a hardened sort of cement that not even a chisel could break. A once appetizing breakfast had become the equivalent of wallpaper paste and mortar. The sea had called to the keeper of the cottage after his meal had been eaten and the paper had been read, and the dishes had been sacrificed for later. When salt clings to the air and the waves rock you to sleep there always seemed to be a list ready for later, whenever that was. There were a lot of things that seemed to be better left to later. Was that tomorrow? Next week? Next year? Whatever it was, it rarely seemed to arrive. The cottage keepers dish sat in the sink, and coffee had turned cold in its pot, a black ring forming just above the surface. Crumbled newspaper pages laid scattered on the kitchen table, and mail that had been collected was left unread on the countertop.

The kitchen was small, some might even say quaint, big enough to make a meal, small enough to want to eat alone. The square kitchen table sat in the corner by the window, a treasure once collected in the back of the rusted truck from the side of the road. Not a single leg matched another and top had been painted over many times. A hodgepodge mismatch of chairs surrounded it, each a different style, color and height then the one beside it. A table made from a collection of misfits that had found a place in a world that they would otherwise be unwanted. A reminder that one mans trash can become another mans treasure. The chaotic table sits near the window that overlooks a nearly perfect view of the seaside. A perfect view from an imperfect table seems almost like metaphor of some kind, but if it is, no one has sat long enough to put it together, it will probably be found on the list for later.

The morning cup of coffee abandoned on the coffee table in cluttered living room. The cold brown pool forming a new ring along the inside of the cup joining the others that stain the inside at various heights. The pine coffee table is worn and gray with three legs, the fourth being replaced by stacks of books and magazines that cause to many things to slide from its surface. Despite it’s precarious look, the table seemed to be holding up well. The missing leg tucked on a shelf in shed, in desperate need of a little glue and some attention, but for now it rests on the list for later and the stack of books hold its place for now.

            The room defining the perfect combination of organized chaos that only the right person could truly appreciate. A sofa sits behind the table, a coffee brown faux leather couch with a single cushion missing from one side. A wooden rocker missing an arm sits in the opposite corner surrounded by bookcases, the chair not old exactly but certainly well loved. Each cream colored bookcase surrounding the one armed rocker is littered with books, photographs and trinkets. An old gold telescope lays precariously atop a pile of papers on one shelf. A couple smiling in front of an abandoned house in the desert fills frame on another. Books in various conditions filling empty spaces, and filled ones too. A library book overdue by a decade sat on the table in the hall leading to the stairs. Its covering displaying a well-loved copy of Treasure Island, an old black and white photograph of the same couple marking the last readers page.

    The door to the hall closet sits ajar at the foot of the steep stairs. Towers of board games are stacked from the floor to the hems of the coats hanging in the closet. Each box a slightly different size and shape, making the towers off balance and precarious. The Monopoly box has slid to the side of it’s pile, threatening to take the whole stack with it if the door to the closet is opened just an inch more. The closet an eccentric  hodgepodge of items crammed, stacked, tucked and stuffed. Every available inch of space filled with objects, but the smell of time creeping through the cracks. The wooden staircase creaks under bare sandy feet, leading to a single bedroom at the top of the steep stairs. Each slat seeming to grow smaller as a person climbs.

 A rod iron bed frame greets anyone who makes the climb, a black frame holding a bed left unmade.  A hand sewn quilt crumpled with sheets from its occupants’ escape sitting on the bed waiting to be neatly and made and tucked. Another task on the list for later. A water glass waits empty on the bedside table next to a hand wound clock that had stopped ticking decades ago. Not a single tic could be heard from the clock as time had run out. No one winds time when you are waiting for later.

    The bathroom was small like the rest of the house, just big enough to serve its purpose, but not much more. A single red toothbrush tucked in a cup beside the sink, a once wet towel on the floor beside the toilet. If one holds their breath and listens closely, almost straining to hear over the sounds of the waves outside, a small drip could be heard coming from the faucet in a hypnotic rhythm. A drip and drop dripping softly into the drain below. A leak that had been dripping since drops learned to drip, a leak that would be fixed later.

The floor of the bathroom and bedroom both calm and cool beneath sandy feet. The mismatched floorboards scratched and nicked from time, yet still soft and a smooth. There was no closet in the bedroom or the landing atop the staris. Instead there simply was a trunk at the foot of the bed, and a scarred white dresser in the corner. Two more items rescued from piles of the unwanted, two more treasures to behold. The trunk once journeying across high seas and rattling tracks, was in desperate need of new hinges and the dresser in the corner was missing its thirds drawer. Tucked in their places as if they belonged all along, there repairs on the list for later.

 A takeout coffee cup from a local corner coffee shop titers on top of a stack old magazines on the dresser. The precarious stack surrounded by aging newspapers, and little notes on crumpled pieces of paper. Seaside beans was printed on the side of the cup, drips of old coffee staining the faded logo. A paper cup just like a souvenir from a quiet morning spent at the neighborhood cafe on the water. A  little coffee shop that sat between the Columbus harbor river, and the roaring waves of the ocean. Too far to welcome a tourist, to close to not be loved by those who know it’s there. The coffee shop was tucked inside the walls of the old mill, a water wheel still guiding water from the river to the ocean to this day. A hidden gem, a hole in the wall, a wonderful place to spend a morning waiting for later.

    The wicker trash can beside the dresser had begun to run over with balls of crumbled paper, newspaper advertisements and little drawing on cocktail napkins. A pad of paper and an pen liberated from a bank sat on the floor beside the bed. Completed pages lay beside the pad, new pages laying beneath waiting to be filled, pages that would never be completed. A lamp on the remaining bedside table poured an amber glow on the room even in the bright sun of morning. The loyal little lamp, once rescued from the dumpster behind the old bank had done its duty well for so long.

A little house frozen in time waiting for its character to return to set. A movie being recorded without a camera. The house on the old seaside lane sitting quiet throughout the day waiting for later. A house having been left behind in a moment. That morning its keeper had risen from their bed, with the intention to return, but sometimes things happen in an instant, leaving the loyal old house to wait along with the list for later.