April 7, 2024
SPOILER ALERT: This journal entry contains themes and insights from The Empty Lot Next Door. If you’re trying to avoid spoilers, it’s advisable not to read further until you’ve finished the book. Reading this journal entry may reveal important plot details you’d rather discover alone.
Did the treehouse sketch in the book The Empty Lot Next Door resemble the real treehouse in the empty lot? No, the treehouse didn’t resemble the sketch crafted by the Indian artist to whom I tried to explain. His rendition was idealistic and spooky, somehow fitting the mood of my memory even though it didn’t mirror reality. It was good, so I accepted it.
Our treehouse was a stage, sturdy and flat on the ground, bordered by the towering bark of the old oak tree. It wasn’t a sanctuary amidst leaves and branches but rather a grounded platform. Only a single 4x4 board, weathered yet firm, bridged between two limbs above. From it, a rope dangled, swinging freely in the idle breeze. We used it to swing, to imagine. Ricky used it for his stories and his illusions.
Neighborhood children, eyes wide with wonder, sat at the base, enveloped in Ricky’s stories of magical adventures with his unseen companion, Griffin. His words, a mixture of ghastly stories and fanciful journeys, stirred visions in youthful hearts and minds that rivaled the stories of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn.
That tree and the treehouse, seated in the empty lot, was a canvas for memories, some warm and cherished, others like a biting wind that warned of darker times. My childhood navigated through its branches, the echoes of laughter and shrieks of fright entwining permanently within its ancient branches, both beautiful and haunting simultaneously.
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