The aisle was carpeted with a carpet named Yielding Effects and the color was, according to an old catalog my mom had left behind, Oriental Jade. The walls bore paintings from the family’s efforts to inculcate their children artistic talent that only now stand there as testimony to their good intentions and their immense faith they had on their children. Family photos also hung here and there of relatives now gone to better pastures. In the middle of the aisle stood an eighteenth century mahogany longcase Grandfather clock with a rocking ship in the dial and a quarter-chiming movement that used to bring shrieking screams from my mother every time we rushed by the aisle to get to the table during dinner time. It was her pride and joy and only remnant of a past she never tired to remind us of. It now stands there marking the hours as it always has done, ticking away the light of the sun and welcoming the shadows of the night, collecting dust by the minute every day.

To a larger degree, this very aisle has been witness to many an historical and turning point in the affairs of our family and also a silent onlooker to many a fight between mon and dad and we siblings. The trip to Cantabria reached a final decision right here, by the copy painting of Monet’s Waterlilies, Green Reflection, Left Part. Over there, by Toulouse-Lautrec’s The Toilette poster, bought during a small sojourn mother took in Paris, my sister fainted because, as we lesser beings unaware of the mysteries of womanhood later found out, she’d been then 7 weeks pregnant already.

Maybe the reason for this flurry of activity in an aisle was due to our bathroom being there. Many screams to hurry up were shouted on top of our throats to the door and yet here I stand now, in front of it, alone at last, and somehow It doesn’t feel the same….

Just then a voice from the distance interrupted his thinking – ” Are you coming George?”

– Wait a sec hon … I’ll be right there. George walked into the bathroom and took a piss, zipped up fast and then headed for the car.

– Boy! Why do you always have to take so long every time we stop at your mom’s old house? I mean every time we stop here you always seem to take an eternity for just taking a piss ..

– Just drive hon, just drive …