The House Date Thursday, April 25, 2024 - 08:07 PM PST Topic Entertainment There once was a small house located in a small town on a dead end road. The paint was peeling off its sides, some of the windows had been broken, the yard wasn't mowed, and no one dared visit that place. No one at all wanted to go there, not to mention go inside. Even the spiders who had once lived in the cobwebs that flowed around the rooms like pale silver tapestry didnt bother to stay. Dust clung to all of the books in their shelves and everything else for that matter, but there is a really interesting story behind this old broken-down home. The man knew it was a meager home and everything inside it was meager too, but he just couldn't bear to sell the house or the things inside. This was his home, and long ago it was her home too. After she passed away, he became depressed and haggard. Life just wasn't the same without her. He knew it wasn't his fault because her illness was imperceptible even to her doctors. Her death was a mystery. One day, she was struck with an illness and it never got better. When she went, he wanted to go too. A second didn't go by that he wasn't thinking about her. He especially thought of that day he had to walk through the vestibule and out of the church without his young bride. She had talked about dying before and she told him if she went first, he couldn't cry. He never thought that day would come so soon. She was only twenty-two. Even though he respected her wishes, when he walked through that doorway of that hospital room and witnessed her die before his very eyes without a goodbye, he couldn't refrain from crying. Of course, after she left, he left the church. He hated God, or whatever it was that he went to school all those years to professionally serve. He was to be ordained to be a minister only one month after she passed. He gave up normal living completely. It was no wonder he was shunned by the community. He didn't really blame them for being relentless. It's not like they understood how he felt or even cared. They thought him a poor fool who hated everyone. He stopped cleaning, cooking, reading, or anything enjoyable for that matter. He tried boxing up her belongings hoping she would just fade away with time. It didn't work as he planned. He became so grief stricken, he forgot about things lying around on the floor. He tripped with a heavy box in hand and broke her menagerie of glass animals. He felt so ashamed of himself. He all of a sudden felt like someone was watching him, like her presence was in the house. It was a bad presence, like she was punishing him because he tried to forget the love of his life. He began talking to his "wife" out loud in the house. One day, "they" started fighting about the condition of the house. He thought "she" should clean up. He threw such a fit, he yelled to the top of his lungs and when he glanced out the window he saw the strangest thing. There was a group of people standing outside in the street in front of his house staring. They were in shock. Was there a madman living on their street? That couldn't be. Something had to be done. The man was not ascetic; something had to be done, indeed. Her voice would not go away and it had become so exasperating, he had to do something. He tried talking to "her" and it would just end up in endless screaming in the night. In the town rumors started going around that the devil had gotten into him because he would scream loud at night, "LEAVE ME ALONE, YOU DEVIL. LEAVE ME ALONE!" and run around flailing his arms and throwing things in the air. The man had not slept in so long. It was an endless struggle. He finally came up with a plan but, in order to fulfill it he had to do something so scary it almost made him want to put up with the harassment longer. He had to go out into the public. He had to purchase the problem-solving apparatus. The next night at approximately nine o' clock, he walked out of his house, down the street, passed the church, graveyard, and school to the pawn shop. He shook in extreme trepidation. Could someone know about his machination? He assured himself that no one especially his wife, could possibly know. He walked up to the first glass case; the pawn shop had a profusion of supply. It was hard to choose which one. Meanwhile, he could hear the owner in the office on the phone talking about someone getting married. Something was said about a prenuptial agreement. That brought him back to his wedding day. She wore a long white gown with a golden stitched train. She had a wreath of flowers in her hair and the spring air smelled of honeysuckle. Everything seemed so perfect, especially her. The next thing he realized was a tap on the shoulder; the owner had come out of the office. "Hello?" he said. "Are you gonna buy somethin' or are you gonna stand around all night?" Remembering what he had come for, he reached in his pocket and counted out how much savings he had. He pointed his finger to the long silver one. "That all?" the owner asked. The man shook his heavy head. "Well, here take these. You can't really use that without a box of these." the owner said. A red and white box was placed in the man's hand. It was quite heavy, and enclosed were matching silver pieces. With everything still in his mind, the man walked out the door with his purchase. He reached his house and slammed the door shut. He yelled, "Lori, come here! I have something to tell you. At this time "she" appeared to him. He avowed in an abject way, "I love you but, I can't live like this...not anymore. I can't and I won't." That was that, he ravenously opened the box and slid one of the silver pieces into the problem-solving machine. He sat down in his favorite rocking chair and looked at his wife's portrait on the wall. He started crying and wished this nightmare would just end. He then, opened his mouth and inserted the two silver tubes. With his eyes shut, he thought of one thing, the life they could have had. The beautiful children they planned to have, the trips to far off places, the white picket fence, and best of all, each other. Then, there was darkness. Hearing the gunshots at 2:00AM in their small town, many neighbors called the police. They told the sheriff there was a crazy man living down the street and he was a threat to society. The police were immediately at his front door. They knocked and when there was no answer, they broke it down. It wasn't very difficult, seeing as how the house was in such poor condition. The police stood in the middle of the blood and shattered dreams of a poor man who snapped his last thread. No one really understood why until they did a background check. The man had no family, no friends, and when he finally found someone that mattered to him, she too was taken from him. The man had nothing left to live for and by the way the neighbors made it sound, it drove him crazy to be alone in a scary world. The members of the church that he used to attend held a petition and the house was soon torn down and burnt. It was said the house now belonged to the devil and his demons. The property was sold to a young couple who soon built a small house there. As much as the townspeople wanted to forget the man they criticized and gossiped about instead of befriending in a time of grief, they couldn't. They felt guilty but, it was never openly admitted. They went on with their happy little lives and hid their emotions in hopes that it would all just fade away with time. This article comes from Shmeng http://www.shmeng.com/ The URL for this story is: http://www.shmeng.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=618