No Place Like Home

    It’s a small house, barely more than a shack. But it’s nice. Or at least, it used to be. The panels of the outer walls were once painted a brilliant white like a summer cloud. Now the paint is faded and chipped. There are small bushes lining the house that had once consisted of a carefully cultivated garden. Now, the garden has fallen into decay. The bushes, once so full of delicate, pale flowers, are now nothing more than mere shrubs. Their branches are thin and brittle, and their leaves dead and rattling in the wind with no flowers to be found at all. The stone walkway leading up to the house is cracked and covered in the dirt and dust that has collected on its surface over the years.
    The kitchen was once a sunny, happy place. It’s walls were a bright yellow that seemed to turn golden when the setting sun pooled through the open windows. The floor was made of the same polished wood as the rest of the house. The cabinets were white and usually only marred with a small mess from the previous meal. The fridge was always full. Now, the kitchen seems empty and lonely. The sunlight is dimmed through the now opaque windows. The floor is dusty. The fridge is empty. On top of the table are bills that need to be paid but never will. One says the electricity will be cancelled in two weeks.
    Through the kitchen is a hallway. There are only three doors, not counting the one into the kitchen. Two of them are bedrooms. One leads into the only bathroom. The hallway is even darker than the kitchen with not even a window to lighten it up. But one can still make out the pictures on the wall. Most of them are of a young woman and a boy with sandy blond hair and light blue eyes. They look so similar one can only presume they are mother and son. The pictures show the both of them grow older. The pictures stop when he looks around sixteen.
    One of the bedrooms is clean. The bed is made up and the window cleaner than all the others in the house. The shelves and dresser are dusted and the floor swept. Of course, it wasn’t always this way. Two years ago, the bed was unmade, clothes littered the floor, and texts were dumped on the bed. Then, the mother found out the war was over. Her son was coming home. The room was scoured. The floor polished and cleaned. Everything was put back in its rightful place. He never came.
    Her room is dark and stifling. The window is shut and the curtains drawn. The table beside the occupied bed is cluttered with letters dated several years back and a phone. The phone’s screen is blinking. She’s missed a call. Her son’s old girlfriend, who married another man only recently, wanted to know if she was going to be able to make it over for dinner. She cannot. She’s been dead for the past two hours.
    In five months, her son will finally come home. He’s been in an enemy war camp for the past two-and-a-half years. By then, the house will be sold.