To Forget - Chapter 2

The White Room


The white room was Ed's crazy idea. When he was young, he promised himself to make him a room, just a simple room where he would store the music CDs he bought, his books, magazines, diaries, photo albums, memorabilia, medals, achievements and so on. He would just make it a really simple room. Perhaps rectangular in shape, enough to store a few shelves and cupboards.

Ed knew that he's one, very, sentimental person. Somehow, he realised this when he was about 16 years old. He began collecting his memorabilia from his school days, and he knew deep in his heart that he will carry this to the future. He wanted to grow old with them. Many people found the idea crazy. A waste of space, a waste of time. But to Ed, this was something really meaningful for him.

As much as he loved research, Ed was also an artistic person. He loves photography, and he loves music. And also, he loves writing. His favourite subject during his school days would be English, to be exact, composition. He enjoyed writing essays, especially those essays with only one word as the given title. Even though he was then 85, Ed was still blogging in his blog, which he started 69 years ago. Some writers had visited him, interviewing him as one of the world's oldest and continuous blogger.

Writing calms him down. He felt blissful, peaceful and in joy whenever he writes. He could remember those days where he would just put on his headphones and started blogging on his laptop. After about 2 years of blogging, Ed decided to return back to paper and pen. He started to write diaries. His diaries were filled with deeper and more secretive thoughts of him. And yes, he was still writing at the age of 85.

When you step inside the white room, you would be first welcomed by the wall filled with hundreds of photos. Some framed up nicely and simply in black frames, other were just hung on a string with a wooden peg. When you look at the wall, it felt happy and calm somehow. The wall is showing Ed's love for photography and art. He painstakingly took each and every photo with his cameras. Whenever he had a guest to his house, the wall was the proudest thing he would show to them.

And when the guests would leave, Ed would insist of allowing his guest to take at least one photo for them to keep. Ed would then print a different photo to replace the given photos.

The wall would be on your right. When you walk forward, you will see 5 white shelves neatly and strongly lined up. The first one contained Ed's proud collection of music CDs. From classical to pop, instrumental to pop-rock, everything is there. Ed was a music lover. He felt that there's no point in living if there's no music in this world.

The second shelf contained Ed's photo albums, neatly arranged according to the timeline of events. Everyday, Ed would randomly pick one album where he would just look through the photos again. Sometimes, the album will be wet with tears dropping from his eyes. Sometimes, the album would be left open on his lap as he fell asleep on the couch.

The third shelf contained Ed's diaries, journals, travel journals and books. There would be days where Ed would just simply pick one and read all of these books again. He was really proud of himself as he felt that he had written so many books. Even though they were left unpublished. This shelf has a glass drawer. It was locked, and only Ed had the key to this third shelf. He felt some memories are better for him, only, to see, and relive. Sometimes he would take one and let his children read. But he would never let anyone touch the key.

The fourth shelf contained Ed's memorabilia, From postcards to magnet, notebooks to birthday wishes. Everything was there and Ed proudly kept each and every one of these memorabilia in this shelf. He called it the happiest shelf. Because in this shelf, only happy memories remain. No sad memories.

The last shelf was not fully filled. It was just filled with the thing Ed loves to collect, and was still collecting. There were mugs, notebooks, cups and many other exotic things. Some were bought when he travelled overseas. Some were from his past.

Then Ed muttered something

"The last shelf, would be for my children to put whatever they want, which would remind them of me, when I'm gone. That sounds like a plan"