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$MAIN/HARD/ARCHIVE/32_3.15.96/█
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t smelled of stale coffee and aging fabrics. She had a glass cupboard filled with ancient, furry toys. They didn't look like they were meant to be played with, however. There was an impression of fragility and decorative purpose. I asked her about them when I was around five years old, and she brought me home for a treat after playing and riding the ferris wheel in the park. The treat was some kind of thick cake mostly comprised of ingredients I couldn't recognize with a big layer of whipped cream on the top. She gave me a piece that was huge for my at the time standards, while gazing at me with a senile, loving look. I didn't like it at all, but was hungry and too polite to mention it, fortunately. What I realize now is, she had put outstanding effort into making it. There were no friendly neighbors, family or old friends. It's easy to imagine her trying again and again to get the recipe right, throwing buckets of material away while fighting to overcome agonizing waves of frustration, just so she could please me. Having finished my treat, I went to the living room with her. She sat down to rest some more, but I was running on endless reserves of childish energy. Her apartment interested me. It greatly differed from anything in my narrow scope of experience. everything inside was so, so old. The carpet, table, sofas, chairs, table mats, walls, everything was paling into neutral tones leaking an aura of inertia. Inside the bathroom, yellow stains and calcium were on every surface that ever came in contact with moisture. There was only one large window inside her living room. It looked upon a yard that was on the inside of the city block, walled out by other buildings which all shared a specific look of insufficiently mended deterioration, and almost completely overgrown by resilient city vegetation. Sharp, crumbling gray stone showed on the side of the building and on all areas of the ground not covered in dark green plants.Everything looked like it hadn't been moved since it was first placed. She had a huge collection of childrens magazines, most of which I would say were over 45 years old. ▄he smell of old, yellow paper was magnificent. To get access to them, I had to ask very specifically. They were held in a wooden box high on a shelf in her room. She would get very upset if I damaged any of them. I'm glad that that happened only once. After running through every room in her home, I stood in front of the cabinet I mentioned earlier. All the objects inside looked eerie. T█ere was a dog, carved out of a single piece of wood with fur glued on to various places. It's eyes were made of black and white circu▌ar fabric, as was the protruding tongue. Next to it was the upper body of a viking mounted on a thin pedestal,  fashioned in a similar style. It had a red smile, googlier eyes and a large black helmet. A nu▄ber of tiny porcelain cats made in a simplistic ma▄ner, white with only pale bl▀e or brown stripes as decoration. These ▬hings left the str█ngest impression▬ and the rest I can bare█▀ remember. I asked her if those were toys and if I could pl▐y with them, only to s e her █ace barely twitch and g█a▄ely ▌rown ▄n s▐con▀s. "I.█. I w█s only jo▄ing██."▬
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