Otherworldly Mold: A Five Minute Freewrite

When I was about four years old we lived in the downstairs of a rented duplex. My older brother had a bedroom in the unfinished basement. I remember being at the kitchen table waiting to have breakfast when my mother called for him to come upstairs. He replied he couldn’t, that he was surrounded by water. Now, we often played that game where the floor was lava and you had to jump from the top of the handmade wardrobe to the bed, or from the dresser to the chair. If you touched the floor, you were out—incinerated by the lava. When I heard my brother’s reply, I thought it was a game, so I ran down the stairs, and just as I turned the landing I could see him in his bed and surrounded by water. My mom went and rescued him, and we had our breakfast. It had been raining and the basement flooded. My sharpest memories of the basement are of my brother’s furniture floating around his room (it really wasn’t that deep, I am sure I made that up) and of the strange fungus that grew under some storage shelves in a dark corner of the now moldy basement. They were like suction cups. I was so curious, and I wanted to touch them, despite my mother’s admonishment not to. I couldn’t resist and poked one with my finger. I was sent off to wash my hands as my mother attacked the moldy basement with bleach.

Thanks to @mariannewest for the #freewrite prompt.