THE HOUSE
She slowed her steps as she walked up the long, familiar road. The sun warmed the top of her head as she walked, and her long hair ruffled softly in the breeze. It was quiet - agonizingly so, as she put one foot in front of the other and steadily made progress. Every step she took, her sneakers scuffed along the pavement, kicking up dry puffs of dirt. Her white stockings were covered in the stuff, dusted in a brown that reached up to the middle of her lower leg.
She reached the top of the hill crest, and gazed down at the old house she never thought she would see again. It had only been a year, but it felt so much longer than that. It felt like an eternity had passed by and forgotten to tell her where it was going.
Walking the stretch down to the house took nearly no time at all in relation to the painful stretch it took to reach that point. She walked up the wide wooden steps to the porch, feeling them creak and groan beneath her as the structure was forced to carry the weight of a person once again.
The door was open just a crack, but it was still open, she realized with alarm. Cautiously, she moved forward, placing one hand on the door frame and the other on the knob of the old door. She pushed, and the door swung open with surprising ease.
A huge puff of dust rose into the air on her first step and looking down she realized that everything had been coated with a thick layer of dust. A pang of loneliness welled up in her chest, and she had to pause and collect herself before moving on. The empty house near echoed with silence. The dust muffled any sound that was made, and the air felt thick and heavy around her. The place was truly empty. Whoever the last person was to come visit, they had left the door open, probably by accident.
There were impressions in the dust on the ground in front of her; footprints of someone else who had come before her. She wondered if they felt the same way she did, looking at the place that held so many memories. Memories that she would never forget. The footprints had already filled with dust, and she knew very clearly that it had been a long time since that other person had been here.
She moved on, walking through the rooms of the large house. The front room, where so many discussions and games had taken place was the same as the front hall. It was covered in dust, and the pictures hanging on the wall of the others were covered in dust and the people within the frames obscured. Moving forward, she removed one of the pictures from its place on the wall across from the fireplace, took her sleeve, and rubbed off the dust to reveal much younger versions of herself and Vivienne laughing and nearly falling over each other from something that she couldn’t even remember anymore. A smile broke its way through the sadness, and she shook her head, placing the picture back where it belonged. She took down the one next to it, and did the same, smiling nostalgically at the photo taken of Puzzles as she opened a box containing some golden laurels, a gift they had all pitched in to give her. That was before she had known Puzzles, but she had been told the story.
The rest of the rooms were the same: everything left where she remembered, and covered in a thick layer of dust. A painting of a white dove carrying a red rose sat half completed on Melodia’s easel that sat in the corner of the dining room, looking out into the expansive property where the house was located. A memory flashed through her mind, of Melodia humming to herself as she painted a beautiful picture of something none of the others would even have thought to look at, while Vivienne, Sumi, and Nibi sat at the table playing scrabble. She could still hear Melodia’s soft voice, somehow carrying audibly through the din made by the other three yelling at each other as their competitive natures got the better of them. If she recalled correctly, that game had ended with the scrabble board upside down on the ground, and with Sumi taking cover whilst Nibi and Vivi chucked the scrabble tiles at each other in an all out war.
She shook off the memory and turned to leave the room quickly, glancing over her shoulder as she went. The softly swaying chandelier seemed to mock her as she exited. She climbed the stairs, feeling the dust puff and swirl around her as she went and heard the stairs themselves creak as she ascended. She walked down the hall, peering into the rooms as she passed. She saw glimpses of shadow forms everywhere as her memories of specific events overlapped to fill the absolute wrongness of the empty house. She watched half halfheartedly as shadow images of Iko and Gler pulled together some bizarre contraption in Gler’s room, which they claimed was supposed to hurtle watermelons out the window. She saw Nibi curled up with her pet cat, reading a book while she lay on her bed, and she saw Vivienne seated at her computer, typing away madly at the keyboard. It was all too easy to picture, and with each room she passed, her heart clenched a little more, and it became that much more difficult to hold back the tears of emotion that welled up in her eyes.
She turned left and walked past the empty rooms of Kyo, Wok, and Ritzo, stopping only when she reached the end of the hall. There was a window that let in a steam of light that nearly blinded her as she stared at the door in front of her. With her sleeve she cleared the nameplate, though it wasn’t necessary since she knew full well whom the room belonged to. She turned the knob firmly and pushed the door open before she could think again. Slowly, the door swung open, and the engraved name “Si” presented itself clearly as she walked into the room.
The intensity of the emotion that hit her when she stepped into her room caught her off guard. Her bed was where it had always stood, under the window, tucked up against the corner of the medium-small sized room. Her closet was open, and her dust covered clothes hung like wretched animal skins on their hooks, destroyed by time and exposure to the air. Her bookshelf was full of books, some of which she had completely forgotten she had read. Her white cat stuffy was perched on top, and she impulsively reached up to grab it. She had forgotten how tall the book shelf was, she realized as she was forced to go on her tippy toes to reach the plush animal.
She flopped down onto her bed in a huge cloud of dust and debris, and closed her eyes. The bed still smelled like her bed, with only the added musky scent of the dust. She remembered when she would wake up in the mornings and kick the blankets off to throw her clothes on and rush downstairs since she was late for school due to spending all night chatting with one or more of the others. She also distinctly remembered that time period when she always wore the ridiculous silver tiara that she saw glinting merrily on the top shelf in her closet.
Yes, there had been fights, squabbles, times when Nibi would lock someone out of the house when they had a fight, and then times when they would all sit down and play a game. Every Christmas they had the secret snowflake (their own version of secret Santa), and exchanged gifts while having a good time. Everyone was so unique, so different. She couldn’t even remember why she had left in the first place, but looking back it felt like she had run away from one of the best things that had ever happened to her. Sure, Blizz had been pushy from time to time, but he had been a good guy and he had opened his house up for them to live. She should have been more grateful that she had been given such an opportunity. Four and a half years she had lived there, and she would always remember those times with great fondness, she knew.
Her eyes snapped open, and she pushed herself forward and up on to her feet. Stuffed cat still tucked under her arm, she began to clean; wiping, sweeping, vacuuming, and clearing away the dust and debris. Hours passed as she moved from room to room, wiping down pictures frames, and pulling cobwebs off the lights. She lost track of time, lost in memories that came one after another as she sorted and looked at objects that the only barely remembered and some she knew all too well. Such as Vivi’s matching black plush cat that stared at her with its blank yellow eyes from its location next to the computer while she cleaned Vivi’s room. The objects she that cluttered the rooms unnecessarily, she piled into boxes which she carried up to the attic. She dumped them next to other boxes of clutter, and returned downstairs.
When she was finally done and satisfied with her work, she walked through the empty house once more, observing and remembering, putting every inch of the place into her memory. She took the few belongings that she wanted to bring with her, and tucked them into her suitcase which was where she had left it, under her bed.
As she readied to leave, she wondered about whoever would come to visit the empty house next, for she assumed someone would. She was sure that at some point someone would feel that same longing and remembrance of the place that she had, and escape their busy life for a time to visit the escape he or she had shared with those different, strange individuals. Perhaps not, but she couldn’t help but hope that she wasn’t the only one.
With one final glance at the old house, she walked back down the hill the way she had come, and headed away, glancing back every so often at the hill that hid behind it a place of memories and longing. Si smiled, hugged her cat closer to her chest, and returned to real life.
