The house at the end of the street
Just wrote this little story, hope you will enjoy
The house at the end of the street It stands tall and proud, a sentry at the end of our quiet little street. Many a times I had ventured pass its forbidding, talon like shaped iron doors, a reprieve from the stark gloominess of the world, a welcoming so sweet, that would make honey turn to ash, from the colors cascading all around, sprouting from the ground, hanging form the trees, an array of colors so unique that no words exist yet to describe the beauty of it. Through the garden and up a short climb of steps carved from stone and there you stand before an old heavy wooden door, my knuckles still bear the memories from knocking, sometimes patiently and sweet, other times quirky and unique, many a times desperately and as of late somberly. The door itself always parted with a complaining creak and the face behind was never the shame. A long hallway unwraps ahead, its floor dressed in a thick carpet, each thread masterfully woven and intertwined with each other and yet distinguishable, coming together to depict darkness with haphazardly strewn perfect white spheres, like pearls, almost glinting in the light. Each of the family member offered me a different theory about what that carpet might depict. ‘Oh, it’s just crudely shaped moonflowers, the back round is black so as to give emphasis that it is night thus a night flower and not mistake for uh...I don’t know jasmine’ used to say the mother. ‘It is just a carpet nothing more nothing less, no user in trying to make sense of it.’ said the father. ‘It’s obviously the night sky.’ Was the belief of the young brother. ‘Well, I think that it’s the vacant all absorbing space, that’s why every shuffle and foot fall is snuffed’ the older brother interpreted. I never bothered trying to decipher the cryptic carpet, never took part in their superficial, vacuous arguments over it. The only arguments that existed among them. As if to prove their otherwise closeness as a family the halls walls where cover from head to toe with pictures of them all huddled together with big radiant smiles with background places unknown to me, foreign and far away. As you venture deeper into that amiable environment you pass under an arch of handcrafted wood and find yourself in a circular space with stone walls, a lonesome crystal window, almost invisible, astride a hearth always ablaze offering comfort in an already comfortable place, four chairs, one made of worn-out leather, one as white as ivory covered in wool and two of lacquered wood with hand woven colorful pillows and piles and piles of books reaching as high as the ceiling. That floor was covered with a round carpet which everyone agreed was supposed to be the sun, well I had a different theory for with a closer inspection I could see fiery red scales with orange highlights the coiled shape under our feet had. I guess the family were too caught up in passing their time as they always did in that room, reading to one another to argue about what that carpet depicted. I remember once I picked out a book at random and shuffled it and saw naught but blank pages, I wonder how many stories had these people made up on the spot just to entertain their kin.
I had found my-self more than once in that room enthralled by the words coming out from probably, in hindsight a vacant book.
But just as every fairy tale has an end and just as every placid sea has a seething storm, so this family was struck by grief one day not so long ago. I distinctly remember I was awakened by hellish screams and howling’s of grief coming from that house at the end of the street. Instinctively I ran covering myself with any garb I could grasp in the gloom of my room, out in the street I stumbled, past the talon shaped door, through the garden, up the steps and knocked impatiently and harshly at the wooden door.
The face that welcomed me was pale as a ghost. To the round room I was ushered were I was told that the father had perished, an accident at work. My heart sunk I couldn’t utter a single word of comfort with a curt nod and heavy steps I left that place were happy memories were still fresh, upon leaving I saw the leather from the chair had completely worn off and was splayed on the floor like dead, withered skin, the window was foggy and the fire in the hearth a feeble flame, the carpet it was the same coiled shape as before but somehow different a bit wider it appeared and I think an emerald sphere was poking from under the scales in the center of the room, but I paid it no mind I had to leave cause the anguish was suffocating.
In the hallway on my way out I saw some of the pictures were askew while others seemed vacant somehow. The thick carpet beneath my feet was covered in dust and the white spots seemed smudged, as if waning. The stone steps were chipped in their edges I almost lost my footing and in the garden some flowers were dried up, barely standing up and the iron talon shaped gate had signs of rust.
Days went by without me paying a visit, I couldn’t face them, I couldn’t console them, I couldn’t stand to disrupt their mourning. I found solace in the comfort of my dreams. But as it seemed their plague of sorrow had not ended for once again my sleep was disturbed by wailing, this time I already knew in my heart from where it was coming from, my body acted on its own.
I got up and dressed passed the rust covered, deformed iron door, through the garden where the trees were stark of blossoms and the flowers decaying sticks in mud, up the stairs that caved in with each of my steps, knocked the splintered wooden door and it opened on its own.
The hall was barren of familiarity only chipped walls, the carpet was frayed and weathered just dark no white spots and the wooden arch had started to rot. The room with the chairs was covered in a harrowing heelish glow coming from the barely live embers in the hearth. The two brothers were sitting on the floor amidst pages torn from all the books and the white woolen chair the mother used to sit was frayed almost grey and cold. I knew, the banshee had visited them again.
‘She died from grief’ one of the brothers whispered, I couldn’t tell which one, the voice came as an empty echo of the past.
This time the tangle in my throat didn’t prevent me from speaking.
‘I am sorry for your loss’ I muttered and then made my leave.
The years have passed, I haven’t heard or seen the brothers since, many nights I laid awake waiting to be disturbed by yet another scream but thank the gods it never came. A great house used to sit sentry at the end of my silent neighborhood street, now a dilapidated hovel.
I gather up courage to visit it once more maybe by doing so a cascade of happy memories will drown the anguish that it emits.
A rusty pile of iron remains from the gate, the garden is naught by ashes and broken branches, the steps barely a foothold, the wooden door gone, the black carpet stretched thin, the walls crumbling and covered in mold, the arch rotten and black, the window lays in broken shards, the chairs a heap of molding wood, the hearth empty and cold, the pages just crumble on the floor.
Only the circular rag remains but its different, its scales still fiery red but in the middle a grotesque head has unhinged its jaws, its emerald eyes strike fear to my soul, the serpentine teeth so sharp my skin feels slashed, its forked tongue beckons me in as the beast is ready to swallow me whole.
THE END