House

To this house two custodians come. They come twice a week for two hours. Together they clean it together they leave. Sometimes, a hairy germ watches them leave. “Why didn’t they get me?” It says. Then it looks around the empty house, and begins chewing the blue wall.

Living in that house, with the germ, are several men. Unfamiliar with them all the narrator is only certain that they are men. There may be more germs, that is uncertain, but for the people of the house, they are certainly all men.

Sometimes a woman visits the house. She appears very clearly in the window of the door in the entrance lobby. The house works like an apartment building and has a lobby. If the germ is watching it can see the woman carrying a hot tray in her hand. Steam lifts from the tray and her image becomes a little blurred in the window. She is usually not a pretty woman, and looks better with the window a little steamed.

She wipes the window with the sleeve of her long coat although it is clean and not very steamed. She wipes the window with the sleeve of her long coat and looks into the house. Something of an objectionable nature appears on her face.

It could be the steam distorting her image or the tray scolding her fingers. That is not very clear if you are watching through the window. Either way, this something objectionable remains a distinct pattern on her face until a door in the hallway, at the other side of the window creaks open.

An old man’s head appears in the dark crack.

Cautiously, it looks at the woman in the window. The woman is now smiling. Then, it turns the other way looking down the hall ending with a turn into a living room and a kitchen. Then it looks up where the stairs lead to the second floor and the third floor. Then it looks back to the end again, where stairs from the bottom floor lead up to the hallway that turns into a living room and a kitchen. Then it looks up at the germ, and hisses.

The old man and his half body finally stoop into the hallway.

Slowly this creature opens the door for the woman looking into the steamed window.
“Meals on Wheels, Vegetarian!”

Her words are sudden and shrieky.

They blow the old man away.

A certain scatter is also heard over the blue walls, like little hairy legs running.
The old man springs himself back to his stoop, proceeding to make a slow lurch upon the woman.

“Aaah” she shrieks.

His hands reach past the door, reach her hot tray, keeping reaching. His eyes are inside his skull, drool glistens at his old dry lips.

But the door slams in his face and he awakens.

“Thank you kindly,” he mumbles to the glass, and disappears into the house. There is a scuffle behind his door and the germ can see his elongated wrinkly face in the peep hole. The woman is gone. She will not be back for another week.

Or maybe she comes everyday, the narrator is not sure.

The custodians come again and start their shift. Three germs watch them. One of them is screaming but cannot be heard. Another taps its hairy leg on the wall.
“Do you hear that, I swear I hear Morse code.”
“Your crazy.”

The custodians start cleaning. It could be they exchange a couple of words, it could be they don’t, nobody listens to the custodians to really know. 2 hours finish, they leave. The house is empty and the germs are gone.

In the evening the front door opens and a man walks in. He is black and wears sunglasses and a WWII French replica helmet. He whistles tunelessly.

A germ is being born retardedly to the tuneless whistle in the hallway. The whistle disappears down the staircase and is not heard for another week.

A few days go by and another woman enters the lobby of the house. She has a key to get in but first she dials a number on the panel to the apartment units. She presses them and without waiting, takes out her key and enters the house.

A germ with half an eye struggles to make out the woman. It follows her up the staircase, but dying suddenly out of some deficiency on the blue wall, it evaporates.

The woman knocks on a door of the second floor. She notices a long trail of caked dirt on the floor. She says, “Good, at least he’s alive.” A cockroach stares up her dress from the caking on the floor.

She knocks several times, finally hears a groan.

“Its Amanda.”

Another groan.

“No, Im the social worker. I don’t know who Lucy is. Im Amanda.”

Two groans.

“I don’t know anything about the other worker, today Im your worker.”

Nothing.

“How are you.”

She texts a message on her cell phone.

“Im sorry, I didn’t hear you.”

A groan.

“That’s good, that’s wonderful news.”

Three groans and a moan.

“Well I just came in to check up on you make sure your doing well.”

Behind the door a sound is heard like something trying to sliver. It gets closer to the door. The woman listens for a moment, hears scraping against the door. She takes something out of her purse and puts it underneath the door.

“That’s your grocery money, okay. I got to go. Make sure you buy groceries. Buy some apples.”

The scraping gets louder and the woman hurries down the stairs. She is gone out the door. Behind her the soul of a germ flies to heaven.

The custodians haven’t come for two weeks now. Twice the old man cracked open his door and stuck his head out, cautiously. He looked at the door and noticed the window was getting dusty; little sunlight was coming in. He looked at the other end of the hallway turning into a living room and a kitchen. Then he looked up the staircase leading to the second and third floor; then he looked to the other end where the staircase from the bottom floor led to the hallway turning into the living room and a kitchen. The house is empty.

He can hear the walls are crisping and little flakes are falling to the ground. He realizes he is very cold, and knows a whole ceiling of germs is watching him. He quickly closes the door. There is a scuffle heard and the germs can see his elongated wrinkled face in the peep hole. The locked is turned. There is no more sound in the house for the next few days.

The custodians don’t come and the women don’t come. The walls are nearly white. A tuneless whistle is faintly heard, downstairs, where the black man with the sun glasses and the world war two French replica helmet dies obliviously of trench foot.

The thing behind the door on the second floor finally scrapes the wood away and begins slivering to the washroom in search of food. Its eyes are bulging out of its skinny frame and occasionally extend themselves on tentacles. A hard shell of dirt shields this creature’s back as the white flakes fall from the ceiling, sometimes chips of wood.

One of these chips falls into its long eye and blinds the slivering thing leaving it handicapped on the dirt caked floor. The roaches begin to gather around it with an appetite.

The old man looks out one last time from the crack of his door. The window is black and the light from outside no longer shows the white of his face. The old man smiles his skull smile and falls scattering into a pile of bones.

A week later the custodians sweep the house away into a garbage bin and eat the vegetarian food from the stack of cold trays left on the front lawn.