Day 253 - The house at the end of the block

 The House at the End of the Block

Matthew Ryan Fischer

 

I remember the house was on a hill at the end of the block. An old lady lived there who taught piano to the local children. I can’t quite remember her face, but she had long wiry fingers that showed off her veins. Her knuckles bulged and her fingers bent and she was probably afflicted by terrible arthritis among other things. But she could still play the piano. Perhaps she hid her pain well.

In the end the house was full of sadness. Her husband long dead, her era of teaching lessons ended. And then the house began to rot. The bushes surrounding the house weren’t maintained. Weeds broke through the brick walkways. A dead tree remained in the front yard, split and broken over, the roots still clinging to the ground. The grass was clumps mixed with weeds, with patches of dirt and rocks. The shingles were broken on the roof. Window broke, the shutters cracked and hung loose. The paint flaked and wore away. It was all falling apart, the woman unable to maintain it herself, unable or unwilling to pay or ask for help. The house reflected her slow crawl towards death.

Later, years later, to no one’s great surprise, she was found dead in her home. Gassy and bloated and discolored. In a state no one should have to see. Thankfully I wasn’t the one to find her, but oddly I was named executor in her will. Husband dead, distant relatives scattered, missing or dead, somehow, I had made an impression on her. I hadn’t expected it, had no idea I had mattered to her, but humbly accepted the duty and tried to do my best.

The house smelled of mildew and rot. Dust and cobwebs were everywhere, and the air was stale and hardly breathable. Her house was like a museum – archaic, pristine and fragile. It all seemed so distinctly like an old person – the patterns on the plates, the collectable porcelain dolls, everything made from handcrafted wood. I didn’t know enough to tell if anything was a worthwhile antique or if it just happened to be old.

But I tried, as best I could.

I never felt quite right doing what I did. Appraisers were hired. I searched the internet as best I could. Days turned to weeks turned to months. I tried to do the right thing. I tried to find good homes with caring people. But sometimes old collectables are just old and anyone who ever cared were gone and dead as well. Some things had to be given away. Some thrown away.

I tried. I did my best. I wanted to tell her. I hoped she would be happy. Some of it went to people who would love it. Some of it went to people that needed it. Maybe not enough, but some.

I turned the lights off one last time and felt a sadness come over me. I shook as if cold, but it was summer and I probably had a reaction to the finality of death. I hadn’t thought about her being gone as long as there were items to sort. But closing and locking the door, I was putting her away, bound to history, bound to be forgotten. I had no idea how many people she taught piano to or whose lives she touched, and had no way to reaching to telling any of them.

I gave the keys to the realtor, signed my papers with the courts, was paid a fair wage, and my duty was done.

Years later I returned to the old neighborhood and found her house had been torn down. There was a realtor sign in the yard and a notice of construction on a fence surrounding the yard. Time had moved on. There would be new memories built and someone would love their brand-new home. But the little old lady who played piano was long forgotten.

I climbed the fence and walked the yard and approached the spot where I estimated the front porch used to be. The ground sank with my footsteps. I knelt and touched the ground and found it wet and cold. There were no stones or flowers, but I was definitely in a grave yard.

The little old lady, if she could see, if she knew, certainly was sad and playing a melancholic piano piece. I hummed a note to myself, but I was no musician. But surely there was a song somewhere that could capture such feelings.

Where had her spirit gone, I wondered? A ghost trapped in the house? Or buried with her body? Or was her spirit in the piano I had given away to the local school. Every day when students pounded on the keys, was she there, smiling? I liked that and hoped that maybe it was true. I prayed she wasn’t in the dirt, here, where her house used to be. What a sad existence that would be. Everyone you loved or knew, gone. All your possessions sold or donated away. The rooms spent your life in, the bed you spent your nights in, no more. Every trace vanished. And would your ghost go with it? Gone for good? No, better to believe she was music now, out there in the air, floating around, giving someone else the gift of sound and the love of notes. Better she was part of something still, felt and loved if not actually remembered.

I would need to visit the school and perhaps watch a performance. Perhaps I would feel close to something special. Perhaps there would be a purpose after all.