I looked around, fall had come and gone very quickly that year. The fresh snow had started to blanket the ground with a quiet peace. If you would allow that peace in. Peace that would not last, as long as you enjoyed what you saw, the newness of the snow fall. If you would allow, accept, for just one moment, it was peaceful. Pure white and untouched cleanliness, almost like a new person coming out and realizing the beauty around them.
Soon it would melt or become dirty with the filth of the day. The covering of what was left on your skin, and if you were lucky, the next day would be back to cover whatever impurities that were there, even for a second in time. You would still see the beauty. I wandered around the outside of the house.
It needed a paintbrush, new shutters, the character came through the peeling paint. Old, withered, showing its age a bit too much. Knots of wood beginning to look like the sandbags of my eyes. Hallow, dead.
I walked around the yard as I traced my hands on the wrought iron fence. Every third spoke was the highest point, almost forming a spear. I would pity the person who would try to scale these irons. Chuckling to myself, I had known when I got the house what the fence was for. Not necessarily keeping things out, retaining them within the hostage area allowed.
I wondered in the darkness of my mind if this house, this house that fit me so well, was now my captor? If it was, would my death be with mercy or tyrannical rage, much like the rage that had recently consumed me.
I came back to the porch. As I looked up at the sky above me, it held, perhaps, snow in the mist of the night. Perhaps my moment of peace. I pushed on the black handle to open the door, to make ajar my new life. With every attempt there was no budging. No way for me to see what was blocking the door. So I walked the rest of the way around the ominous house.
Looking up, I saw how far up the sides went. The tower of the house looked down on me as if it were inspecting me as well. I began tripping over the weeds in the ground. The ground softened my fall which only welcomed me in. Welcoming me to the hearth that was now my home.
As I wandered around the house, the dust settled, untouched, unshaken for however long that it had made itself home. I came in unsettling and resettling the dust around my feet. It was as if it did not wish to move, only to be part of the moment, then it would reconnect after the current disruption of their moment and time. Resettling only to become a part that was no longer needed or wanted.
It was sad if you thought about it. Something no longer needed only because a new way comes in. To be disassembled in such a manner. Such as were we as well.
The house was much larger than I expected. It was a catacomb house before I bought it. Abandoned so long ago, left to the side, forgotten, yet the character of the house remained. It needed to be uncovered. I could see where the previous owners had managed to upkeep it. They took care of the house, that gave them shelter in an uncertain world.
I didn’t really remember who lived here, I did know it held a lot of children. A lot of people, until the machine took over. Such sadness when the boards went on the windows. It became a nameless house, dead in the wood, only to be over looked and eventually destroyed. Maybe that is why I did not over look it. It actually drew me to it. Through the rod gates and covered porch, through the bushes that had not been pruned forever. The house stared at me.
I knew it was where I belonged.
The house settled into itself, leaving nothing left to be desired. No one would bother to see beyond the dust. And unfortunately, unless you looked beyond the dust you could not see the beauty with in, simply in the architecture that was placed together. Planed, touched, molded, stained, and was given life.
As I opened front door, there was a banister, cherry wood, I was sure in its glory days it shown like a prized pony. A chandelier sat in the middle of the floor where it had been dropped from the ceiling. They were going to toss it out. Why toss what light many a pathway, I felt. I had it remain, as gaudy as it was. It was quite the chandelier.
There were different things, not fine glass or crystal. Nothing extraordinary, unless you looked close. Shells, pebbles, hand strung beads, simple intimate ornaments, that would touch the most simple of hearts. It was funny to me how that no one could see beyond the dust, if they did not look to see that yes, it was old, yet it was amazing in its own facets of life.
As I walked through the house and picked up things here and there that the former tenants had left, I remembered that surprisingly the house was sold for a dime on the dollar that day at the auction.
Three people showed up. The Auctioneer cried out, not one bid, no one bid upon the house. There was not a minimum for this house. I did not understand at the time, I believe all happened for a reason. I bid a dime as a joke. The joke was on the town, and the Auctioneer. I got the house for a dime.
It suited me well. I went to the highest bidder as well. So to say. I wondered, was I only worth a dime after all these years? I had delivered the news to the public so well, I forgot somewhere along the way, reporting without fear, or sadness. I could now deliver messages with no feeling that would ever cross my face. Because it was the way it was. People trusted me, I trusted my own devices, knowing full well that the news did not affect us, we simply reported it.
My mind went back to the phone call I received not even two weeks ago, an old friend back in the Senate. They were wondering if I could cover him. Or more so his sister had called me for that. I cast it aside, the fact was, it bothered me that no one was remembering him, or reporting about the standing he made in the community that he had continued to reside in. He had supported, and his community supported him.
In a grand scale of uprising, he had touched so many, so many got involved. Became a part of what others would not. He was so unafraid to speak. He knew that he would be well protected by the people he had protected. He spoke for them and they supported him.
They had done that for me once. As I left, I forgot them. I didn’t think anyone knew I was back, in the old neighborhood. I was not even sure they wanted me there, if they knew I was there. I had not been back for so long. I am sure many had forgotten that I even existed, except upon the fact they watched me on the evening news.
Or maybe they didn’t, after all that happened, why would they? They saw me reporting on the news, but only the news allowed. When I left, I wanted to change the things around us, just like the Senator, I tried, without the same luck as him. His road was hard. So was mine, I just chose an easy path. This time when his sister called, I did not choose such an easy path.
I was glad the house was only a dime. I could only afford the bare minimums now after I went ahead and interviewed the Senator. Against the advice of my coworkers, the producers, everyone.
I wanted to do this interview. It was important to me, a promise I made to him before journalism school. I told him that when I was a big wig I would interview him when he made it to the machines house. It was more than that though, it was the fact that he was the only person I knew in my life personally, that took care of and never forgot where he came from.
He was not afraid to question the reality of what was existing right in front of them, before their eyes. Those whom did not wish to see, he challenged the system and made it quiver at the mere thought of him speaking. So much so, that he never made it to point of actually doing anything, except stepping into the halls that eventually one became a part of.
Mind you, he did not forget where he came from, many tended to believe that is what ended his life all too suddenly. There were cries from the people, only to be ignored and cast to the side, soon the society that existed continued without question. It had not mattered that he was merely a glitch in the system that was running fine to the people within. For the people outside should not question or be selected to question. To go with the status quo and accept what they were given by the society around them.
He called them the unforgotten. He spoke for them and believed in them, to a point.