Oren remembered an austere kitchen, Bea an extravagant one. (austere: spartan, unadorned, stern) His account was prosaic: one table, one stove, two chairs. (prosaic: mundane, commonplace, humdrum) Her description made the room seem positively elysian. (elysian: heavenly, idyllic, blissful) It contained a profusion of colored light, a lustrous green bowl and a wallpaper of exotic birds. (profusion: abundance, plenty, copiousness; lustrous: shiny, glossy, gleaming; exotic: unusual, unfamiliar, foreign) These contradictory memories threatened to confound the exhibition designer. (contradictory: inconsistent, conflicting, incompatible; confound: baffle, bewilder, perplex)
Their first reconstruction was an amalgamation of everything each could recall. (amalgamation: merger, combination, fusion) The resulting room struck Oren as contrived and Bea as oddly commonplace. (contrived: artificial, forced, labored; commonplace: ordinary, unremarkable, unexceptional) Trying to amalgamate the two accounts had erased the distinctive feature of each. (amalgamate: merge, unite, combine; distinctive: characteristic, distinguishing, individual) An elderly aunt suggested they find the window before they purchased another lamp.
Oren used to visit before work on winter mornings. Bea arrived when school let out in June. They stood by the little west window until the last sun passed through a sheet of colored glass. The walls came alive with flying birds, the chipped bowl turned green, and the only lamp in the room was the one both children had forgotten.