The Wooden Cabinet

The wooden cabinet looked strange in her sparsely furnished bedroom. It was too big, for one thing, and it was yet another addition to the motley bunch of mismatched furnishings that could be found in it.

The room was a shade of pink with hints of white and rose. The frames and doors had been painted white by the original builders. The bed was also primarily white, with smatterings of subtle color here and there. She had found a small bedside table at a local garage sale when she first moved in and it had been just the right size for her bed. It was cherry brown, with cast iron details. She had made it a point to bring into her room a spare lamp she had found around the house. The lamp and bedside table completed the look of her bed, even if there weren’t any other furnishings to speak of.

When she had started studying at the university a few months back, she had thought it prudent to invest in a desk. It was as she had hoped meant to help make her work and studies more efficient. But in recent months, it had functioned more as a place for her trinkets and books whenever she came in or left the room. She hadn’t cared that her desk was a dark brown hue, either. After all, it looked black in the dark so it could still go with the cast iron detail of the bedside table.

This piece of work, on the other hand, was in so many ways an antique. It was beautifully crafted hardwood with matching bronze fittings and a rich brown varnished finish. It had been pretty to look at when she first set eyes on it at an acquaintance’s house. Since that person was moving away and getting rid of excess furnishings, she had jumped at the opportunity of finally having a dresser.

But that had been when it was elsewhere. That was probably because her room was much smaller than the room it had been in. She had failed to consider the hulking size of the thing. Now that it sat ominously against the once bare wall of her room, it looked strange. It had sat there, wrapped in protective plastic coverings, for several days after the movers had brought it in. She had merely stared at it, regarding it a strange intrusion into her now familiar space. After a few days of staring at it, she took out a pair of scissors and cut through the plastic wrap. She tried to ball it up into a huge wad as she regarded the dresser for scratches or any kind of damage that the movers may have made in bringing it up to her room.

The next day, she opened the cabinet doors and was pleasantly surprised to find drawers inside. But its insides smelled of smoke and a hint of mothballs—not exactly the kind of smell one normally expected of a wooden cabinet. But then again, this cabinet had probably lived through as much cigarette smoke as she had so that gave them something in common to start with. She had to leave it open for a few hours to air out the smell, aside from spraying the drawers with a Lysol Odor-neutralizing spray .

When the smell of smoke had faded away, she took a cleaning cloth and some lightly scented all-purpose cleaner to task. Spraying all the surfaces and wiping it clean, purposefully discarding whatever remnants of the past the cabinet may have held. In the nooks and corners, some sentimental dust had accumulated. Underneath the drawers, she found a faint cobweb and an old prayer card—some offering of grace signed by a presumably old priest. A randomly misplaced nut and bolt, probably set aside by the previous owner for a purpose too soon forgotten and discarded.

Just when she was almost done, she noticed a tiny inscription on the bottom of the cabinet door’s inner side.

Love is never enough

It had been written in an unassuming manner. Whoever wrote it probably didn’t intend for it to be found by a stranger’s eyes. Pity. Such a beautiful piece of work ruined by some presumably pained individual who needed a testament to what it was that he had gone through.

She stood to put away her cleaning things and when she set them on her desk, a Sharpie pen caught her eye. Today was, after all, a day of cleansing. She picked up the Sharpie and twirled it thoughtfully in her hand. She uncapped it and bent towards the inscription.

Love is never enough 6.8.10

It was the beginning of an end.