20110915

The Basement

by Shane DeMonica

My cheeks were still wet with tears after the scolding I got for breaking my first glass Pepsi bottle – the one that was just sitting there on the sidewalk waiting for some four-year-old kid full of curiosity or snot or both to come along and break it. That’s when the word “basement” somehow snuck into the conversation and I responded with a stolid: “What?” My dad, surely wanting to get away from his mother-in-law on his vacation, led the way. I’d gathered that this basement thing was underneath us somewhere and wondered why we’d ended up in the shadow of the house in the backyard. Then dad unlatched the padlock and swung open those funny white doors wide and unveiled the descent into a dank black hole. I braved my way to the third or fourth step from the bottom before the terror took hold and, having decided that I didn’t really like basements all that much, retreated from that place for good.

6S

Shane DeMonica lives in Colorado and likes to try his hand at writing occasionally.