On his right, with his shadow, and his companion, they were passing by an old house. It was not so old that it has collapsed on itself, or old enough to have looked decrepit and structurally unsafe, but old enough to be considered old; the kind of old when you look upon the wrinkels of the elderly and say "Now she's old." It was your original house; the flat porch, the triangle roof, the square house, with the four windows all equidistant from another with a door firmly placed in the middle. It's like a house you'd picture in a fairy tale, a story, your regular old house that was not falling apart, and not haunted, and not spooked; but just an old house. The yellow paint was beginning to strip and peel off, not due to outside circumstance, but to time, and weather; the natural had occured to the unnatural, and nature had won this round, as it always has, does, and will. The glass panes had strips of wood surrounding them, green, with matching green shutters; it contrasted greatly the bare yellow that surrounded each window, each hole into the house. The door was not a door, but as a gate; it looked as if it could not be forced open with any amount of strength, but with a simple turn of a key and the click of a lock, it would open, and allow passage to any and all, until it was shut once more, and locked, barring passage to any, and all. It was a white door, stripped of its colors long ago, once brown; a brown oak so rich it was not a tree anymore, but a manmade object, created specifically for the use in this door, a unique door, not found once more within this world. There was a bench on the porch, its middle broken through, as if some giant had attempted to rest his weight upon something, and this bench was that unfortunate support. It held well, but not well enough; still standing, but not wholly. "This is the spirit of a house once proud," he said, turning to no one. "This is what happens when one does as one wishes, not caring how others view him; it is easy to sell one's soul: it is hard to do what you really want. This is the result of that want, a selfish, egotistical want: to stand the test of time, to be looked upon by all, and not to be judged, but to be seen, in the light, in the dark, in any time, in any place, to be gazed at and not scrutinized, dumbfounded by its presence." He opened the mailbox at the front, put a letter within, and shut the door. The house groaned, moaned, and fell upon itself with the intensity of a mouse, the quietness not strange, nor weird, but a peaceful; the walls crashed down, inward and out; the ceilings gave rise, heaved, and fell; the window the cracked, shattered, and broke; the porch it lie still, withstanding it all, an end to age past, a final rest for all. The dust cleared, the ruins had settled; the trio began on their path once again.
He walked over the next hill, his shadow faithfully following, his companion aside.
25 December 2004
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