Finding Home

“They say smoke is immaterial. They are wrong. It’s just that, unlike us, it has no concrete chains of responsibility tying it down.”

Sitting on the bench, waiting for the bus, the empty street seemed claustrophobic to her. She stared down the far end. Nothing. Only the flickering streetlamps casting their melancholy light on the pavement.

She rubbed her palms together, in a desperate bid to keep the cold away. Her hands were coarse from washing the dishes. The skin had begun to wrinkle. She sighed, the worn out cashmere coat doing nothing to keep her warm.

She glanced at her watch. It was a quarter past nine. Another fifteen minutes.

She looked around, trembling slightly in the cold. On her left, stood a massive grey building, towering over all the other houses in the street. Its walls spoke of decades of neglect and contempt. She pitied it. She had always wondered about the owner. She had never seen a person enter or exit that house in all the nights she had waited for the bus. Maybe it was abandoned.

A dingy alley ran beside the building. The streetlamps cast a narrow beam of light on the narrow alley. It seemed strange, she thought, that an alley should be placed in such proximity to a building. She scrunched her eyes to get a closer look at the inexplicable alley. In the half light, she could make out the silhouette of a dented trash can. She could see the shadow of a prowling cat, probably scrounging for food, etched on the walls of alley.

Footsteps sounded on her right. She turned, anxious. The neighbourhood was not exactly known for its safety.

A broad shouldered figure emerged from shadows. The man had a bowler hat drawn low over his head. He walked with a definitive limp, his hands jammed tight in the pockets of his long frayed overcoat.

The man came and sat down next to her on the bench. She fidgeted, slightly, in her place. The man noticed the little movement and snorted.

“Don’t worry. I ain’t going to bite.”

“No…I just...sorry.” She flushed a deep red at the discovery of her trivial insecurity. She was glad it was dark.

“Can’t exactly blame you now, can I? This place ain’t exactly known for its security. What you doing here, anyway? Waiting for the bus?”

She hesitated a little. A brief pause while she contemplated her answer. He seemed harmless enough, she supposed.

“Yes. And you?”

“The same.”

An awkward silence. She took the opportunity to examine him. His coat, she noticed, was patched around the collar. Another struggler. In the dim light she could make out a faint jagged scar running from his left eye to the corner of his mouth. It was intriguing. His brown coat was a little frayed around the edges. It was, then, that she noticed his shoes. Impeccably polished. It was puzzling, she thought, for a man, seemingly so poor, to own such shoes.

The man followed her gaze and noticed her preoccupation. He snorted again.

“They are new. Not stolen, if that’s what you are wondering.”

She turned her gaze before answering.

“No…no. I wasn’t thinking that all. I am sorry.”

“I am Loanne, by the way.” He extended his hand. She could see him clearly now. He had a gentle face. Like a fleeting gazelle. It was only his scar that suggested a foreboding past.

She bit her lip, her mind furiously struggling within itself. When she did nothing, he withdrew his hand and smiled.

“Is it the scar? Yeah, a lot of folks feel the same. Don’t worry, lady. Its ok if you don’t want to tell me your name.”

She felt a pang of guilt mingled with pity. She cleared her throat as if to say something, but he was already rummaging in his pockets for something and did not seem to hear. She wondered whether she should apologise for a third time but decided against it, convincing herself that it would only make her seem silly.

She returned her gaze towards the grey building. She noticed a cracked window that she had missed earlier. The cracks around the window pane were strange. Almost deliberate. Almost as if somebody had taken a rock and taken predetermined action and etched those cracks on the window.

She sighed as she chanced another glance at her watch. Another seven minutes.

The night seemed to have drawn into a huddled crouch. From somewhere came the sound of screeching tires. Probably a late night reveller, she assumed. This city was known for the parties thrown by the elite. It was only the strugglers, like Loanne and her that felt the sharp sting of harsh reality. The others...they lived in their delicate bubbles.

Next to her, Loanne lit a cigarette. She cringed at the smell of pungent smoke. It brought back unpleasant memories.

He made a gesture of offering her a cigarette, but she shook her head firmly. He shrugged and put the packet back in his pocket.

“Loanne?” She wondered whether she should ask him. She wondered whether he would find her question silly.

“Hmm?”

“Do you…umm…know anything about that grey building over there? The one with the cracked window over there.” She nodded towards the object of her curiosity as she asked him.

“That one? Its abandoned, ain’t it?” He paused as he took a puff from his cigarette. “Yeah, one does hear a lot of rumours, though…”, he trailed off, looking into the distance, his voice suddenly husky.

“Rumours? What rumours?”

“Yeah, well… it’s been abandoned for ages now. The owner had it barricaded. Can’t blame him, though.”

“Why? What happened?”

“Yeah, it gets a little hazy there. Some say he had breakdown from work; bankrupt or something like that, and it sure cost him. His wife left him soon after. Ran off with some bloke, they say. The kids went off with their mother, too. That broke him. That did. He left the house soon after that. Never came back. Pity… such a nice house and all.”

“How do you know all this?”

“One hears rumours.  Besides I worked in this locality for a month. I knew him…the owner I mean. Mr.Halley…well, he was an unusual man,” He broke off here, unwilling to continue anymore. Sighing, he took another puff from his cigarette.

She remained silent for some time, drinking in the story. She pitied the man. Abandoned by the ones he loved when he needed them the most. She looked at the house once more, her mind racing with curiosity. She wondered, again, how it would feel like to step into a house that had borne witness to the tangle of human lives.

Loanne flicked the cigarette into the empty darkness, sighing as he did it. He looked at his watch.

“The bus should be here any minute now”, he announced.

She did not turn her gaze from the house. Looking at it, she felt a strange intense desire to just barge in through the barricaded front door. She wondered how it would feel, stepping into a house that has been devoid of life and laughter for so many years. She thought of how it would feel to run her hands along the desolate walls, breathing in the stagnant, musty air of the house, listening to the quiet whispers of the silent wind.

There was the sound of honking horns, as the bus turned around the corner of the street and came to a halt right in front of them. Loanne got up and made for the bus. She hesitated a little, unsure of what she wanted to do.

Loanne turned around. He followed her gaze and smiled.

“Aren’t you coming? It’s the last bus.”

She turned towards him, rudely awakened out of her reverie.

“Oh, yes. Yes, I am coming.”

She trudged towards the bus, with one last look at the grey house. Maybe, one day, she would enter that house just to feel the shiver run down the length of her spine. Maybe, one day, she would get to hear the untold story of Mr.Halley. But not today. Today, she had responsibilities. Today, she had to find home.