PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

London’s Soho.

London always fascinates me and I often take trip to London for a day. I wander around Soho looking in all of the small shops that sell what most people would call rubbish but to me some of the items that I buy are well worth the few coppers that I spend buying these things. One day I saw in one of the small shop windows a brass lamp. The thought struck me what if that was Aladdin’s Wonder Lamp. I know you might think I am a sucker for the odd bits of junk that I sometimes buy but it is in my nature to obtain these odds and ends and make a story out of them. Today I entered the shop and asked to see the brass lamp. As soon as I touched the lamp a tingle ran down my arms into my chest. I paid the few pennies asked for the lamp and made my way home again to my house on Dartford Heath.

At home wondered if the lamp would still be useable as a lamp or was it just another ornament to be cleaned and dusted like so many of the other bits and pieces that I had over the years bought on my trips to Soho. Taking a bowl of soapy water I washed the lamp thoroughly. The tingle in my arms increased and I felt the excitement going to my head. I had washed both the inside and the outside of the lamp. I began to polish the brass with a soft cloth and was delighted when the brass began to shine. Soon I had a bright polished surface on the lamp. I wondered if I filled it with paraffin and a piece of wick if it would lighten up the room.

I lit the wick, which had soaked up some of the paraffin. After trimming the wick I had a bright steady flame lighting up my kitchen. I carefully blew out the lamp before going upstairs to my bed. In the morning of the next day after washing, shaving and dressing myself I went down into the kitchen. Something was different. I could not place my finger on what it was that was wrong. It was the old copper kettle that gave me a clue someone or something had cleaned and polished the kettle making it shine as if new. Looking around the kitchen I saw that everything in the room had been washed or cleaned. It was uncanny. Who or what would clean my kitchen making it look like new?

Now thoroughly interested I went from room to room, every room showed the same careful polishing and cleaning even the frames of the pictures had been cleaned and as I looked out of the windows I saw that someone or something had made an excellent job of cleaning the glass panes. An expert had cleaned the whole of the downstairs rooms. How long it took to clean the whole of downstairs I can only guess. Later I saw the brass lamp it was no longer shining bright like it had been when I went upstairs the previous evening. The lamp now looked jaded in fact it was out of place in the thoroughly cleaned rooms. Taking a soft cloth I rubbed the lamp polishing until it was once again a bright shiny brass lamp.

It seems that this lamp had been made at the same time as Aladdin’s lamp it too was magic and whenever it was cleaned and polished it repaid the owner by cleaning and polishing the whole house. I still have the lamp and would not part with it for all the gold in China. Bern