CREEP

CREEP: THE HOUSE THEY USED TO LIVE IN

As part of a business trip to Chicago, Jack decided to take a detour to see the old home. They had been there for twenty-two years before they moved out. How time disappeared with the flick of a magician's wrist — now you see it, now you don't — with the flick of a wrist.

On the morning of their June wedding day, Jack and his bride walked through the front door of the home. Navya, their only daughter, had just joined them at the home. It was at that home that he began his professional career as a software designer.

Twenty-two wonderful years have passed.

Navya is now an adult, having graduated from high school and is now a resident at the Mayo Clinic.

The recollections were wonderful and valuable, but they were also short-lived. People had always encouraged Jack to take it easy and enjoy himself; to live in the present. "Kids grow up so quickly," they expressed concern.

In that home, there was, of course, Jack's protracted cage fight with the bottle of liquor. Those were not very pleasant recollections. For a time, these caused problems in his marriage. There were disagreements, but he and Aisha finally came to an agreement. With her help, he was able to get control of his illness. However, as soon as the cancer diagnosis was received, the rounds of radiation and chemotherapy began. He was able to defeat one illness just to be confronted with another. Jack, on the other hand, overcame cancer. He had been cancer-free for seven years at this point.

It all came flooding back to him as he drove to the home on Hamilton Street. As he drove north on Lake Shore Drive in his rental vehicle, he came to the realisation that a home is similar to a memory vault. Everything is kept in that location. Everything's all of it.

It was snowing in Chicago at the time. Large, light flakes fall from the sky in the shape of constellations. When the snow started to pound the windshield, it made the wipers bang back and forth. It was also snowing out across the dark length of Lake Michigan, as well as all over the rest of Chicago.

Jack was driving past his childhood neighbourhood. It was still bright out on the lampposts and in shop windows and on the homes thanks to the colourful Christmas lights still adorning them. It happened the week after Christmas.

In the middle of the night, he drove by the park where he used to take his daughter when she was younger; the swings and teeter-totter were motionless and chilly. He drove by the library, which he had visited with Navya when she was a kid. And with great delicacy, the elephant extended his enormous trunk into the air, lifting a dust particle and carrying it over to a particularly soft clover, where he carefully put it...

The driver of the car grinned as he drove down the peaceful street and past the library, which was in complete darkness with the lights turned out for the night.

When he heard his baby daughter inquire, pulling on his shirt, he remembered something from a long time ago. "Do you suppose the library mouse is there?" he thought.

Hamilton was turned down by Jack. It was pitch black outside, and the snow was still falling. Just like his daughter had grown, the trees that lined the streets around them had grown since they left. Jack wondered whether any of the old neighbours were still alive and if so, who they were.

And then he arrived at the home, a modest red-brick Georgian with white shutters on the front porch. Not much, in fact, had changed. Nothing at all. He parked his vehicle across the street, in front of an amber street light, and got out. It was dark outside the big living room window, yet the lights were on inside. He imagined Thanksgiving feasts and tucked-away teeth with messages for the Tooth Fairy beneath their beds. He remembered returning from school musicals and scientific contests as a young boy. With his daughter, he was throwing the football down the street and removing the training wheels off her bike as she pedalled for the first time, exactly where he was now parking his car.

"I'm going to do it, Daddy!" My mode of transportation is by bicycle!

He remembered the Christmas tree in the living room, all lit up, and the year he gave Navya the orange Tabby cat, which she called "Boots," and how she instantly cuddled the cat tight under her chin, closed her eyes, smiled, and sighed as deeply as the cosmos.

He saw himself fourteen years later, digging with a shovel in the hard, freezing backyard on a November day and burying Boots, with Nadya 17, her black eyes filled with clear pools of sorrow, at his side, as he thought about it.

That home was a treasure trove of memories for me.

While Jack was sitting in the vehicle, a light in an upper window flickered on. Navya's previous bedroom. He couldn't remember how many times he had rocked his daughter in that same place. She had a difficult time falling asleep on a regular basis. In his arms, holding his dark-haired tiny daughter as she nibbled on her thumb with her eyes closed, he could easily spend an hour or more. Jack remembered the difficulties of his little daughter screaming and not being able to go to sleep at night. The doctor had referred to it as a "sleep onset problem." He would sing to her, sway her from side to side, brush his nose against hers, and kiss her soft forehead as a means of showing affection. She wouldn't sleep in her crib until he was certain she had finally succumbed to sleep, and even then, she would often wake up the moment he placed her in her cot. A young father who was just getting accustomed to the routine of patience and caring for little children found it all to be quite a challenge. Jack would get irritated and angry as a result of this. It was difficult being a parent.

He sat in his vehicle, his gaze fixed on the road ahead. What he would give to have another one of those difficult moments with his daughter. There's just one. He wasn't going to get frustrated, he reasoned. He wouldn't be resentful in the least. No, It would be a delight for him. Everything's all of it.

A guy appeared as he glanced around the home, particularly at the bedroom window, which was illuminated. Young. Hair that is dark. Unshaven. He walked around the room, then vanished for a brief time before reappearing. He reappeared after a little pause. He was carrying a baby in his arms. He began to sway back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, all the while gazing down at the tiny infant in his arms.

Jack sat in his rented vehicle on the side of the road, just watching. At first, he felt bad for standing there and observing the father and kid in this manner. Then he was filled with envious feelings. What he wouldn't give to spend just one more minute with his own child in that room.

What was it about me that I was constantly in a hurry? What was it about me that made me so impatient?

The father proceeded to rock the infant, doing all he could to assist the little kid in falling asleep. The dance between father and child continued for 10 minutes, with Jack standing outside his vehicle, watching the snow still falling outside.

The father brushed the bridge of his nose on the side of his infant's face. He leaned forward and kissed the infant on the forehead. Jack couldn't believe how much the storey reminded him of his own childhood.

The natural cycle of life. Twenty-two years ago, I was in the same situation.

Additionally, the young father was exhausted upstairs in his bedroom. He couldn't get his kid to sleep. This was the case on a regular basis. People suggested that she should be "sleep trained." It's best to just place her in her crib and let her scream it out. But he was the one who brought that baby into this world, and he made a solemn promise to safeguard that precious little angel. He couldn't bear listening to her scream, wondering where her father had gone and why he wasn't rushing to her rescue. He couldn't take it.

So he rocked her to sleep night after night, and it seemed like it took an eternity at times. While rocking the small kid in the evening, he went towards the window and gazed outside for a while. Snow was falling, drowsy and silver, with each flake seemingly endless in its complexity. He pushed his face closer to the glass pane while holding his daughter in his arms.

A vehicle was parked outside, beneath a sulphur streetlamp, and the driver was sitting in it. The engine was idling, and the exhaust was spewing blue-gray clouds out of the tailpipe as it ran.

The father squinted a little. It was a strange experience. It was he who vowed, through the darkness and falling snow, to be the guy who was behind the wheel of that vehicle. He was gazing directly at him from above.