The Notebook in the Room

The walls stood bare. The posters had all gone. The paint had chipped away. The dry wall corroded.

Jonathon sat in his room. He very much liked the place. He found it to be the perfect escape. The walls were painted a deep maroon, but one would be hard pressed to notice. For the walls were papered with posters and pictures of various bands. Jonathon had not picked any particular bands; that hadn’t mattered. He had simply used whatever he could find excluding, of course, light rock and pop bands. He was not a very particular person, but he had his values and he stuck to them.

The room was not a big one. Rather, it appeared as an enormous closet. The posters gave off a feeling of claustrophobia that Jonathon loved. It also accomplished his immediate goal. It kept people out.

Jonathon rarely brought anyone into his room. The room was not much to look at. Jonathon had a bed, a dresser, and a stereo. Some clothes resided in the dresser, and rolled up and sitting crookedly in the corner was an old carpet. Jonathon had never felt the need to lay it. His CDs lay hidden beneath his bed. Under his CD case sat a notebook. Some knew about the CDs. None knew about the notebook.

In school Jonathon was ignored. He had friends, acquaintances that would acknowledge him from time to time, but no one he could really depend on. But that happened to be fine with Jonathon. He didn’t need anyone. He was better off on his own. So he would sit in his room most days, playing his music and scribbling away in his notebook. His door would be closed, as usual, in an effort to keep the world out.

His family had little to do with Jonathon. He would see them in passing from time to time: walking down the hall, leaving in the morning, etc. These brief encounters held no meaning for Jonathon. These people didn’t know him. They had no intention of knowing him. So Jonathon left it alone. He left most things alone. Life seemed better off left alone. Jonathon felt it best to stick to his room; life in his room was simply less complicated.

Jonathon’s notebook contained things that he did not understand. The handwriting was certainly not his own. The comments were certainly not coming from within him. Yet, he would write in the thing daily. He knew he did. He would remember reaching for the book; it always sat beneath his CD collection. He would remember getting out his pen and he would remember the intent to write. Here is where the memory would grow dim, and eventually, absent entirely. Then, the session would end, and he would simply recall putting the book away. He dared not look at the notebook’s contents. He was never sure of why he had been so afraid. He simply was.

Then, one day, Jonathon’s mother decided to clean his room. The room required very little cleaning though, Jonathon having not been a very messy person. She found only dust under the bed, along with some CDs and a notebook. The notebook was tattered and almost at full capacity. She casually leafed through the thing. After a moment, she stopped abruptly and looked away, dropping the notebook to the floor. She did not move for quite sometime. One would be hard pressed to pinpoint the emotion that resulted in her tears. Perhaps sadness, or maybe fear. It would be hard to tell.

Jonathon was taken away from his room. That made him sad. He knew it had something to do with that notebook. He missed his room. If only he had destroyed that thing. Now, more than ever, he wondered what it said.

The room was forgotten; abandoned by the rest of the world. Jonathon was the only one that ever cared for it. Eventually the posters and pictures faded and fell away. Eventually the paint chipped and the dry wall eroded. Eventually the room was forgotten entirely. How easy it was to forget. How hard it would have been to remember. But that was for the notebook. The notebook that no one ever understood. The notebook that had all the answers. The notebook that condemned. This was all too much for the room. The room that saved. No, the room that could only save was simply no match for the notebook that condemned. And such is the way. The notebook in the room.

A guy