Thursday, January 20, 2011

Post Christmas

I don't show people what I write - not typically. Hardly ever, really. I know of two or three people who "follow" my blog. It's funny. After three years of using Blogger I still have yet to decide if I'm kosher with the idea of putting my thoughts into "the Interweb." I don't have authority here. No one really does.

Regardless, I wrote a short story a while ago and finally decided I would put it online for kicks and giggles.

So, here it is:
__________

It was surprising how stale her house had become after a week of abandonment. No heating and air circulation paired with its lack of inhabitants made for a rather stuffy interior. January’s creeping cold had already taken the first of its long toll on the one-story ranch house. That house – that family heirloom of two generations – not only felt colder, but for the first time ever, foreign as well.

No lights inside or outside. The wreath-laden lantern in the lawn that welcomed visitors was now snuffed out; a sad powerless incandescent bulb making the half-acre landscape so misgiving.

Inside there was no movement, no noise. An unlit tree was still tucked into the corner, its antique limbs and needles having seen decades of Christmases – still sustaining the evergreen luster only plastic could ensure. Though unused this season, that tree had outlasted her. It was now a dull green, nearly olive in the muted light that seeped through windows that couldn’t properly illuminate the room even with their blinds drawn back. The sun sets low and early in winter. It would be a long time before its light would reach above the tree line during its descent into dusk.

Creaking, yellowing linoleum tiles lead from the kitchen to the basement steps – that narrow passage congested by wooden frames documenting a long and tender family history, eventually descending low into a tunnel of polished veneer and thinning carpet. Gaps between the panels hint at some space behind – some artificial rift made to separate the untouchable. It was merely that thin wall separating the stairs from the furnace room – a dark storage of canned goods, obsolete appliances and overflow from decades of possession.

Here in that bosom of that house the only resident burrows back into a corner behind the cold metal shell of a furnace. He lives near a bicycle that hasn’t seen pavement since its owner moved out a generation prior. It stays there – motionless and poised. It is staring at the wall.
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