The Last House on the Block
The Last House on the Block
As time moved on its never ending march, always forward, never back, the house aged. Though at first a graceful, slow, aging, the house now began to show the ravages of neglect. As two passing consciousnesses, you, dear reader, and I, watch on, we can observe what happens. Like the ghosts of ages past from a long forgotten novel, we do not affect the environment, we only observe it. Lifting off the ground, we rise into the sky to see the same view the birds have seen for years. Not far, just high enough that we can see the neighborhood.
This street was once home to a variety of families, and yet now it is silent. No passing vehicles mar the stillness in the air. Indeed even the creatures of nature are quiet, as if in mourning of things lost. Looking down, the street, asphalt, has cracked and split from the untold years of exposure. Grasses grow freely amongst the fissures, no one to up root them. Along the sides of the street, what once were houses, cherished and loved, now are mounds of rubble. Two houses remain standing. The first, bearing the scars of a fire now long since gone, stands soundly still, the flames evidently did only aesthetic damage. Across the street, the same can not be said for the other house. Charred walls and jagged, gaping holes reveal the inside of the home. No interior support structure is left; the house stands still only by the purest of chance. As we watch, the house, after countless days of resisting, surrenders finally to gravity. A resounding crash, and then, silence. The dust, disturbed, plumes into the air, eventually re-settling. Of what was once a house, only metallic debris remains; the boards and bricks that gave the house shape and form, weakened by years of rot and rain, disintegrated as the house gave way. The metal; pipes and nails mostly, no longer shielded by the shell of the house, will soon rust away, leaving only a stain to attest that they were ever there at all.
Across the way, the house is buffeted by the shockwave triggered by the death of its once-constant companion. It stands, though, triumphant against all odds. With nothing of interest left to observe, we float towards the house. What was once a lawn, hedged in by a faded picket fence, is now a meadow. Children's toys, left outside to be played with another day, are still visible. A roller skate, the leather of the shoe and the shoelaces long since gone, the wheels fused from corrosion, lays where it fell when its owner carelessly tossed it aside on the morning of that fateful day. Time passes, paying no heed to the two specters which drift above the street.
As night day turns into dusk, the children of nature emerge from their foul warrens. Generations of mice, with no traps to catch them, and no cats to prey upon them, have been born, and now take to the streets, fighting for any edible scraps they find, fleeing only from passing owls. Crickets, wary of the mice, chirp without gusto. The wind begins to pick up, as it always does. Shutters which by some miracle have not yet fallen from the now alone house begin to sway in the breeze, only faintly clanging against the house when the wind directs them into it. With the setting sun casting an orange glare onto the house, we see details previously hidden. The paint which once covered the entire home, was gone, peeled away long before by the relentless sun and the occasional storm. Moving upwards, towards the roof of the house, great cracks are visible in the bleached ceramic shingles. A gaping hole in the roof waits, like a yawning mouth which will forever be stuck open. Venturing inside, we find that the hole continues down until the basement. A meteorite, the surviving fragment of a great mass of interstellar rock and metal, which struck the house sometime in the past, now lies in a shallow puddle of rain water which it had let in. No scientist would ever examine it, and no construction company would repair the home. The sounds of dusk die out, to be replaced by those of the night.
By the time the first tendrils of morning sunlight strike the home, we are already inside. Dust, inches thick in places, covers the interior. Exquisite antique furniture lies sprawled in a heap, termites having gnawed through the legs. In the bathrooms, the faucets are naught but rust; no more water will ever course through them. Everywhere the eye can see spiders have built webs. Some with intricacies like nothing else, others, haphazard nets woven only to catch. In the kitchen, the shelves hang at odd angles, tired from years of loyal, if unseen, service. No food remains, it was all eaten or decayed to nothing long ago. In the master bedroom, the bed sits unmade, as it will for the rest of eternity. Very faintly on the bed sheets it there appears the impressions of two people, but it could be mere shadow, the blinds, though covered in dust and cobweb, manage to let light in even now. In the hall, a magnificent, ancient grandfather clock sits, undisturbed. As if in acknowledgement of our presence, using the last of the electricity in its batteries, chimes a single, long note. Just as the clock finished striking its last chord, the immense pendulum, that for so long hung still fell, to the floor. The carpet, and the carpet of dust gathered over the years, muffled the sound. Still, a dull thump could be heard, or more precisely, felt. The house, which had held firm against the elements through the decades, was tired, if a home can indeed by personified. The dust, disturbed, rose into the air, and then slowly fell back to the carpet.
This assault was the last straw. The reverberations from the pendulum hitting the floor had traveled through the house until they reached the foundation. Crumbling from years of sweltering heat in the summer, and freezing cold in the winter, the concrete could not tolerate anything more, and cracked. The house, still sound though it was, could not support its own weight, and gravity took over. Creaking and groaning, the roof of the house broke through the ceiling beams. The first, and indeed the only floor now, having to support the weight of the roof, gave way. As the once grand house settled, the surviving animal and insect denizens fled. Soon, termites would descend en masse to the feast of exposed wooden boards, but for now, the sounds of nature filled the air. The birds, startled by the collapse, began to sing again. Clouds, floating lazily overhead, are dark, wearing mourning clothes. We, the observers, drift away, mayhap to find more of the scattered relics of humanity. The birds sing continue to sing, and as we move away, a light rain begins to fall, and an ancient, familiar poem echoes through the air, but there is no one here to hear it.