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Of Houses and Melodies
Dedicated to S. Gallardo
She had an hour. An hour to dredge up all the good, bad, beautiful and ugly… before she let it all go; slip through her fingers. Silently the woman regarded the house. White with rusting hinges on the gate. The loud groans of protest when she moved them reminded of its age. Old house with old dreams and old, old memories. That was the child’s home. Soon to be another’s.
The little one clamored to go inside, to run wildly around the terrace to the back with the ghostly dogs that were there. Quiet barks in the back of the woman’s mind threatened to engulf her wholly. She caved in after a moment and moved within the deserted place. The garage was quiet. She could almost see the dogs running around; big innocent, loving eyes looking up at her; shining in their openness. A picture of gladness; to see her… But they can’t see. Below the ground they wagged their tails and wiggled in joy. The ground shifted. The woman in turn said nothing; did nothing, but the child – wearing Island slippers, shorts and a battered shirt – smiled joyfully at their reaction.
The woman looked at the cement – stained with invisible footsteps and paw-prints; washed dog urine and dead cockroaches – and the child had pursed its lips. The memories, ghostly, clouded the eyes of the woman and the she thought she heard the quiet tinkle of metal on metal on leather bands in the distance; coming closer. Baby… come here, doggy… beautiful fur and big open eyes that shined up at her. Nails – long and sharp – scraped against the cement – in the house – in her mind. A giggle like a trill escaped the child’s lips as the little one watched through untainted windows of love.
The woman saw transparent figures run and meet at a spot in the garage – hugs and kisses for a furry animal friend; a pattern; a repetitive beat. But it wasn’t there anymore. There were no more hugs; no more kisses… or furry animal friends. They were all gone; underneath old soil. A dead melody. The smile that threatened to lift her pursed lips was shoved down into the pit of her stomach and the ghosts disappeared with it. The child returned; the look downcast and melancholy.
Silently they both went around the front of the house – old house with old dreams and old, old memories – to the double doorway. Curiously, the child stared at it. Never had they used the front unless it was for special occasions… oh, the child thought in revelation. No more side entrances for them. No; not in a million years. It wasn’t personal anymore – this house with the bodies – both ghostly and rotting beneath the surface; just as part of the earth like the rest of the organisms that were there. One of the doors was left open, letting the dusty air of the inside to drift freely about. The woman was hesitant to enter again – it’s no longer your prison, a voice insisted in her head, no longer your hole – but the child pushed her in with its cries, needing to see everything – old dreams and old, old memories – once more… before all was lost. To the both of them; a distant pit in the part of her mind that would go on forgotten – but there. Always present; never gone.
The woman edged inside, wary of her surroundings. What if the door suddenly swung closed and she couldn’t get out? No, nothing was like that there. It was just what was that was there. The barks intruded her mind once again, echoing and ricocheting off the walls
(of her mind)
of the house. Scuttling of paws and nails on the marble floor haunted her. The light brown fur that shed on everything drifted across her mind in a leisurely manner; irritating her senses that she almost felt like sneezing. But nothing for the woman; no there was no change of expression no flicker of emotion in her eyes. Just the aloof scanning as she walked farther in. She looked back once to look at the door, flung open and static in it splayed manner. So vulnerable, she thought remotely.
The child let out a sigh of relief and rushed across the living room, dodging unseen obstacles of chairs and polished tables – all intricate and antiques; old and telling their own story. The woman could almost smell the exotic scent of Arabic coffee drift into her nose – strong and effective; much like the one who drank it. The child, too, smelled the wondrous scent and entered the kitchen in search for the source.
Ghostly images of men with large bellies and woman with wide hips but a short body came towards her – a greeting lined with white and they left, vanishing into the air as if they never existed. Oh, but they did; they did; I know they did. They’re there in the back of my mind. The child had come back from the kitchen; apparently, the small one had no luck in finding anything of great significance to show the woman.
Once again together, they moved towards the staircase with worn down carpet covering it to go upstairs. Thump, went their feet. Thump, thump, was the illusion’s reply. People moving about on the second floor; that was what the woman remembered. Once they came upon the landing, the child looked about. Bookshelves with no books stood catching the dust – they are trying to compensate – while the doors of the rooms – aged white and creaking – bore a hint of what was inside. The music floated in, mixed with the sounds of a television on and the hum of air conditioners for each room.
The child, still curious made little steps towards the master bedroom while the woman moved forward. It used to be my room; my haven that people broke into once in a while. She blinked and kept moving; the dusky pink – looking purple in the dim light – peeked around the door at her, beckoning her to come.
And she did.
Her eyes roved her old quarters. It was so small – yet it was so big when I was still here – that she felt like she engulfed a great amount of the space it was limited to provide. The windows, cracked, had been slid open, allowing the foreign smells of neighboring houses to fly in and out as it pleased. Not mine; not ours; not anymore. This was her last stop. And the hardest to get through. All the memories were cramped inside. The woman felt overwhelmed – just standing there, a step inside the little nook – my used-to-be nook. Faces and thoughts all in one room. The child – she hadn’t noticed the small one come – whimpered at the intensity of them. Face after face after shout after whisper came and went; hitting them; assaulting them; soothing them. Different melodies clashed against each other. Hard breaths and wild eyes flitted across the room. She needed to get out. They both did.
With quick and definite steps the woman walked and walked – down the stairs of faded, worn carpet; stepping across the marbled floor; avoiding spots where the fur with big round eyes would have been – had it not gone so quickly – and out the gaping door. The woman took a deep breath and closed her eyes. The child didn’t. Instead the small one looked back at the open door. The child didn’t want to go. But the woman did.
This was the ultimate cut off; the fork in the road; to leave the past behind. No more haunting for the woman. But the child needed to stay. She needed to be with the ghosts and the smells and the invisible steps and paw-prints; the washed dog urine and dead cockroaches. The woman looked back at the child as she in turn looked up at her. It was a silent goodbye. The child stared as the woman went out the front gate; the woman didn’t turn back to see the child fade into the house – along with the rest of the ghosts of her past. As she got into her car and drove away only an old song played in her mind.
It spoke of the one who lived in a house full of memories; of the one that lived with a family of human and animal friends and foes. It was of a person who stayed in a place where time didn’t seem to change the place itself, but changed the person instead. With that change came the inevitable separation of past and future.
What it spoke of was the woman’s story. Her melody. It was her song.