Odd neighbours

I can barely imagine anyone having the kind of neighbours I have, they are tremendously odd…and yet I find them really intriguing and interesting. I live in a very modern part of the city where houses scream of primness. Except for one particular house, that of our next door neighbours. They live in an old sham-shackled house which paint has been peeling since time immemorial. It’s a very unusual house and it seems like it has stuck forever in another era of time.

The people who live in it are an old couple called the “Hills”- I’m not sure if that’s their real surname or if it just refers to the saying “as old as the hills” which describes them perfectly. The woman is a good eighty-five years old and the man is even older. Like their house, they seem to be stuck in another time- lost in their memories. From what I could gather from the street’s grapevine- which also includes my mother- this old couple believes that the war is still going on and they have an underground shelter full of preserves for an upcoming attack from the German planes.

Mrs Hill always wears a tight shawl around her head and her eyes seem to bulge out whenever the sun is shining. I think she has lived too many years in black-outs and shelters. Once, I had the misfortune to see Mrs Hill with a gas mask pulled over her mouth just because some neighbour was burning some coal for a barbeque.
Mr Hill was a soldier in the Second World War, which explains his peculiar way of dressing. He usually has a dozen rusty, old medals pinned to his breast. Nobody could ever miss him, as his medals are heard tingling from miles away. Apart from his queer garments, he has a very strange way of saluting to people. At one time, my sister was wearing camouflage trousers…and I believe he thought her a soldier, as at once he came to attention and brought his hand to his forehead in salute, and gave my sister the fright of her life.

Apart from all these eccentric habits, I think that the Hills lead a very lonely life. No one ever visits them, except at Christmas, when their only two sons bring their families along. I suspect that they do this out of duty and not because they really enjoy doing it. Not surprisingly, their two sons are called Monty and Dwight, named after two of the greatest Generals of the last World War- Montgomery and Eisenhower. Not only are their parents caught in the time of the war- but they also wanted to relive the war through their sons.

Sometimes I wonder if I’d ever be like that. What if I’m caught in time and never want to move on? However odd the Hills are, they are a good source of reflection towards life and I believe that I can really learn something useful from their queerness. But I do wish they’d re-paint the house, it does downgrade our area!