My Grandfather's House

Is now sold, handed over, my aunts packed up and left. My mum went to say goodbye. No smell will ever remind me of those hot Octobers and cool Novembers I spent flying kites and playing with sparklers, riding up and down in the hand-crank elevator, climbing up the shaky terrace ladder to the upper rooftop where I could see the city for miles. No smell except the musty smell of the six-storey skylit stairwell in my grandparent's house.