August 03 - Exploration

[blastedheath]

The house had only been closed up for a month and the air was already stale. Dust danced in sunbeams that lanced in where the old drapes didn't quite meet. Maybe it was the house. It was generations old after all, as vague a measure as that was, and the old plaster may have simply begun to dissolve. He remembered helping to gut one of the walls

Comments

[blastedheath]

There's actual, real-world meaning in the contents of those trunks, though our nameless subject is only vaguely aware of them.

[tracerj]

I'll admit to being rather curious about what you had in mind.

[blastedheath]

The wedding dress is a reference to one of my grandmother's relatives. She got married during the war rationing periods, and decided that she wanted a dress that she could use for more than one day, so she made one out of what cloth she could get her hands on. In that period, in some circles, a bride in something other than white was considered tacit admission of premarital sex. In this case at least, the unnamed grandparents' marriage may have been one of social necessity.

The snapshots imply childhood mortality, and an uncle who didn't survive to meet his curious nephew. Just one of those things that families seem to rarely talk about, that was sadly common even in the earlier periods of the 20th century.

The uniform and medal are British (though maybe Canadian), the latter granted to men who served in the second world war for six months or more. The bar marks him as having participated in the Battle of Britain.