Basement: a mystery word, go down the long stairs, escape the Ward, smells of rot, secret passages, underneath the real world, a tiny lamp under the ceiling, looking into someone’s forgotten, long-time-not-seen reality, the water drips, the torch’s light crawls on the floor to avoid stepping into something sleazy, withered bricks and plaster, the gurgle of pipes, someone must be taking a shower or draining boiled potatoes, newspapers from y years ago, blind, silent, fearing the outside world (that Ward, again), slight anxiety: might be a mouse or a rat? Tales my brother used to share mingle in my head of ghosts and black hands reaching out for you, forgotten boxes, watching the unknown through planks, broken locks and keys still in them, silence, silence, silence—but what a noisy one, like a red shot, it’s hot here, the corridors twist like a labyrinth, we keep going to discover something, find lost items, recall snippets of dreams, someone’s jar, I wonder what’s in it, a ski, where’s the other? Here it is, broken. Perhaps someone can fix it? What a pity to throw it away? It might still be useful, old bottles with corks, a sticky liquid, is it sweet? Scraps, boxes, potatoes with rhizomes like worms crawling onto the corridor, cans of paint that’s likely solidified, rolls of maps of countries that have long changed their names, boxes of old papers eaten by rodents, rusty bicycles with at tyres, a suitcase with no handle, faded torn photos of Brigitte Bardot or Madonna, an old chuck, a broken radio, a bag of potting soil, and we are here with a torch, something draws us, calls us, doesn’t let us leave the mystery, sweat on our foreheads, but it’s nothing, wipe it with your short and carry on, into the unknown, the pipes playing that melody, softer or louder, a liquid organ, inflated strings, hissing keyboards, glass harmonicas, percussion of glue and paper, crunch under your feet, the sprung sound of walking onto a metal sheet, silence again, the clang of the lock, door creaking as a giggling imp, light again, solar, terrestrial, human. We are saved! 

Edward Sielicki