The House

I parked my car on the street over from the cafe; giving myself a little bit of a walk out of habit. I already had an app on my phone to pay the meter downloaded and I clicked through the app with a pace that told me I was not as excited for this blind date as I should be. I was already five minutes late, and I was never late for anything. I was wearing a nice light blue dress, I’d washed my hair, and I felt like that should be enough for this guy. I did have a thought, somewhere in the back of my mind, that it would be nice to kiss someone. It’d been a long, long time since I’d kissed anyone, and now it was finally a possibility. My friend from work had set this up, saying that he felt like we were both workaholics who often ignored our own needs to meet deadlines, so we were a match. This didn’t fill me with much confidence, but at least he would understand my life a little more than most.

It said a lot when I walked into the warm little cafe and it was completely empty that I relaxed. He was late, too. Perfect. I sat myself at the bar where a barista poured me an espresso and I asked if anyone had come in looking for a date, but he said it’d been really slow, and no one had been by in the last half hour. He busied himself with wrapping pastries in plastic wrap and let me know they closed in an hour, and since it was so slow, he was getting ahead on his tasks. I waited for forty-five minutes, eating one of those cellophane covered pastries as my stomach reminded me I’d left the house without dinner thinking I’d grab some after coffee with my date if he turned out to be nice enough to do so. I watched the crumbs collect on the plastic as my eyes drifted over my social media feed and my finger lazily drifted through images of friends I hadn’t seen in years with their respective spouses. I closed the pink case, a heavy click as my credit cards and ID lived inside the cover.

My phone buzzed as soon as I looked away from it. I opened it up again and there was a text from my friend: “He’s not coming, an emergency at work, sorry”. I sighed and thanked the barista, letting him know the date was a bust. He was sympathetic and offered me another pastry, but I declined. When I left the cafe, an oddly cool breeze caught me off guard and I looked up to see dark clouds starting to come in. I walked as quickly as I could on my little wedge heels that looked adorable, but were hard to run in.

As soon as I turned to the street my car was on, my heart dropped. My car was gone. I checked my phone, thinking it had been towed, which seemed a ridiculous over reaction to a meter running out, but the meter was fine. It was just my brain grasping for a logical reason my car had vanished. And then I saw the glass sparkling on the asphalt; catching the last bit of sun rays as they themselves were swallowed by the dark clouds, and I realized then that it’d been stolen. I opened my phone to start grappling with the reality of a stolen car, but my hands were sweaty and I fumbled with the phone and then I watched with horror as the whole thing, cards and all, slipped out of my hands and dropped right into the gutter at my feet that I hadn’t even realized was there. Without a pause I got on my knees and desperately tried to reach into the dark for it, but after nearly falling in myself, I stopped. The rain started just as I was standing up.

Great. Just great.

I knew I was about ten miles from home, and that it would be hard to navigate how to get there by foot as I was so used to just jumping on the freeway. I decided to go back to the cafe and ask the barista for help. But the cafe was closed, and dark, when I got there. I knocked on the door a bit, thinking maybe he was just in the back, but no one came. I looked around to see if any other shops were open, but there seemed to be a lack of much else around. I’d picked it because it was off the freeway just a few exits from a nice strip of cute restaurants, and now I wished I’d just planned to meet him over there instead.

I started walking home, hoping eventually to come across a bar or a gas station, just anywhere with a phone. I immediately took my shoes off, as they became dangerously slippery in the rain and my toes were already starting to scream at me. I carefully navigated the sidewalk as it got less and less recognizable as a sidewalk. Large cracks in the cement where roots had demanded freedom, creating tiny mountains that I carefully scaled. The sky was so dark and the rain so heavy that it took all of my concentration to walk. But as I plodded along, my skin chilled, I suddenly got the feeling I was being watched. When I looked up, still walking at a decent pace, I locked eyes with someone standing in the window of a large white house. They were backlit, but somehow I still held their gaze, when pain went shooting up my foot. I looked down and could immediately see the blood starting to form a line across my toes where I’d ran into one of those cracks where the sidewalk was raised just enough to bite me. I cursed loudly and crumpled to the ground. It was as if the little I’d been holding myself together had just snapped. It was officially a horrible day, and no ounce of optimism could convince me otherwise.

“Are you okay?”

I fumbled backwards, awkwardly landing on my butt and looked up. The man was standing at the little metal gate outside of his house; the door wide open. “Not really.” I took a breath, and decided then I only had one choice. “Can I use your phone?”

“No.” He said firmly. And I started crying. I didn’t intend to, and I didn’t know where it came from, but a deep sob ripped across my chest. “I’m sorry.” He started to babble. “Really, I just can’t help you.”

I nodded, and with snot and tears and rain covering my face, I stood up; wincing as my toes stung. I had a coil of rage in my stomach for this man watching me suffer, and just wanted to get away from him. Suddenly, and with little warning even to myself, I dashed into the street. I heard him yell and the screeching of tires. Darkness came then. A peaceful lullaby started to play in my head, and I wondered if I’d died.

I woke up in a dimly lit bedroom. After realizing it wasn’t my own, I shot up and immediately regretted it. My head pounded, my body ached, and I felt incredibly dizzy. I laid back into the strange, yet comfortable, bed. It was dark, and I could hear the rain against the window.

The door creaked open and I looked over, again too quickly, and winced. It was the man from outside. He was still back lit, and I couldn’t see his face, but I could now grasp that he was quite tall, and his shoulders rounded, as he held something in his hand. He cautiously turned on a lamp and I saw first that it was a glass of water, and second that his face was beautiful and soft, and filled with sorrow.

“Here.” He said softly, his voice low now that he wasn’t trying to be heard over the rain. “Drink this.”

“What happened?” I asked, just as I remembered what had happened. “I was hit by a car, wasn’t I?”

“You were stupid.” He said bluntly. I pulled back a bit at that, and I could tell immediately he regretted it. “I just mean, you shouldn’t have run out like that.”

“I had a bad day.” I said, and my own whine annoyed me. “Just, just can I please use your phone?”

“I don’t have one.” He admitted.

“Oh.” I sat myself up and took the glass. I wondered for a moment if I could trust him to not drug me or something, and then decided he could have just left me in the street. I drank a sip of cool, crisp water. “You could’ve said that.”

“Didn’t I? Oh.” He pulled a chair from the corner and sat by me, throwing one long khaki covered leg over another. “Now you know.”

“You probably don’t have a computer then.”

“No.”

I thought for a moment. “Where’s the nearest gas station?”

“You’re hurt, you should rest.”

“I’m fine.” I lied.

“Just...just rest.”

“Do you have tylenol or something?”

“No, but I have some herbs, I can make you tea.”

I was about to say no, but I was in a lot of pain. “Fine.”

“Fine.” He got up and walked out, shutting the door behind him. I listened to the silence intently, to make sure he didn’t lock the door, and he hadn’t. With this comfort, I laid back and let myself drift into that world between being asleep and being awake.

Time was hard to account for, but eventually the man returned with a cup of tea. I realized we hadn’t exchanged names as he lay the plain white mug on the bedside table, a metal tea ball gently swaying in the liquid.

“My name is Sydney.” I said, my voice sounding too loud in my ears as it broke through the silence we’d gathered around us. “What’s yours?”

He sat back down and watched me take a sip. It tasted like grass, but not unpleasantly. “John.” He said finally.

“Thank you for...everything, John.”

“Don’t thank me.” He said quickly. He got up then, and abruptly left the room.

I finished the tea and fell asleep before I finished it.

In my dreams, I was dragging myself out of the road and desperately clawing at the pant legs in front of me through the gate while I heard the words “I can’t, I can’t” before finally being lifted over the fence.

I felt a bit better when I woke up and the dream quickly faded to the back of my mind. The tea was gone, but there was still the water glass and now a small bowl of greens. I ate it eagerly. I wasn’t usually a big salad person, but I was so hungry I didn’t care. It was delicious, with radishes and lemon juice, sunflower seeds, and different colored leaves I couldn’t identify.

Once I was finished, I got the itch to get up. Curiosity filled me about this man who lived in the city with little to no technology. My feet were still sore, but I saw my toes were already healing. I found a bathroom first, thankfully, and emptied my full bladder. I looked in the mirror and was shocked at the red stains that covered my dress. I checked myself thoroughly and nothing but large dark bruises covered me, with no source for what looked like old dried blood.

I washed my hands and tried to settle my blonde bob into one direction, but largely it still wanted to be askew so I just left it. I walked out and almost ran into John holding a pile of clothes.

“You’re up.” He said, obviously startled.

“Yes, I needed to use the bathroom.” I gestured.

“Well, here. I don’t have much for you, but I found some clothes from when I was a kid. Might fit you better than anything I have now.”

They turned out to be stiff jeans and a striped shirt; I looked like a kid from a 1950s movie, like my name was Scout and I had a dog named Sparky or something. The jeans were a little loose, and a tad short, but it worked better than the mess I had changed out of.

“I can wash and try to mend it for you.” He offered as I emerged holding the sad dress.

“If you want to.” I handed it to him. “You’ve done so much already.”

I took the sheets off the bed as they were covered in whatever had been on my dress. John seemed surprised when I handed it to him. “Seemed only fair to help out before I go.”

“You can’t go.” He said hurriedly.

“What?”

“Not...not yet. Do you want to see my garden?”

I nodded. It seemed the least I could do. And there was something about John I recognized from looking at my own reflection; something most would call loneliness, but the word could not hold the feeling well enough that I would use it myself. After working long hours and living alone, sometimes days going by without speaking to another person; the long look in my eyes would go just a little too far past an imaginary horizon. I could see that in John, as well as that awkward desperation to continue a social interaction after it’s natural end. Plus, I was tired just from taking the sheets from the bed, and I’d have to still navigate home somehow. Might as well wait until it was light out, I thought, at the very least.

He led me through a large beautiful kitchen that had two sinks, which I’d never seen before. The back door led to a giant greenhouse. There were rows of meticulously cared for plants. I recognized some from my salad. “This is what you eat?”

“Mostly.” He said. “I get milk, flour, eggs and salt delivered.”

“I didn’t think people got milk delivered anymore.”

“I am reminded often that they only do it for me.”

“John, do you ever leave here?”

He looked at me sharply. “No.”

“Never?”

“I haven’t left the gate since I was six years old.” He said firmly.

My heart sank for him. “Oh, John.”

He took a shaky breath. “I was playing with a ball, and it rolled into the street.” He pointed. “And a car came, and hit me. And I died.”

“What?”

“In my mothers arms. She brought me back into the house, put me in that bed, and I woke up an hour later. The house healed me. I tried to leave for school the next day, and I collapsed. Mother told me the house was keeping me alive, and I must never leave. She could leave, because she hadn’t died.”

It was so sad at how hard he believed what he was saying. “What happened to her?”

“I took care of her, but when she had a stroke, they took her away and she died somewhere else.” His face was full of regret. “If she’d died here, she’d still be here.”

“She set you up here, with all of this?”

“She started it. I’ve added to it as I’ve gotten older.”

“And your father?”

“He left before.” He waved the question away. “But it isn’t all that bad. Look, I’ve read about grafting and I started doing that a few years ago.” He showed me plants that had been combined.

“You read a lot?”

He nodded excitedly and led me back through the kitchen to a room filled with books, hardly a library as there weren't enough shelves for all of them. “I’ve read every single book in here.”

I was in awe. “There are so many!”

“Most of them are non-fiction, but this shelf,” He pointed to a books with names I recognized like Stephen King, “These are my favorite.” They were all older and worn on the binding.

“When was the last time you read a new book?”

“It’s been years.” He shrugged. “After a while, it’s kind of like a new book though.”

He talked like a young boy. His passion, his hunger for information was attractive to me. I knew then it’d been way too long since I’d talked to a good looking man. And he was good looking, his hair was close cropped which I realized now he must do himself, and his clothes were ironed, though I could see where he’d patched up small holes. His face was round and his eyes light and gentle. I could imagine cupping his cheek in my hand, and I had to shake myself out of it. It was the loneliness; the pull of one soul to another that called to me. If only he hadn’t been so badly manipulated. It wasn’t his fault his life had been stunted so terribly. Or was it so terrible? He was kept from the bad of the world, as well as the good. But he couldn’t be well adjusted, whatever that meant, with a life like this, could he?

“I’ll bring you new books.” I said aloud before I’d even thought it through.

He grimaced. “That would be nice of you, but Sydney…”

“Call me Syd.”

“Syd -- I like that.” He smiled then, and my heart felt tugged on, and inwardly I groaned at myself. John’s smile faded. “We need to talk.” He led me to a big arm chair and gestured for me to sit down. I sat and he kneeled by me, a large hand on the arm rest. “Did you see the red stuff on your dress?”

“Yes.”

“That was blood.”

“What?”

“Your blood. You were broken when I pulled you over the gate.”

I had a flash of dragging myself over. Of the horrified look in his face. Of the pain. “What?”

“You...you died. You died in my arms.” He blinked slowly as he said this, his voice thick with oncoming tears.

“No.” My own eyes brimmed as I started to shift in the chair.

“You did, and I put you in that bed. And then you woke up.”

“John.”

“You can’t leave, Syd.”

Panic started to rise in my throat. “John.”

“I’m so sorry. You can never leave. Or you’ll die. Like me.”

I was running before I realized I was running. I could hear him calling behind me, but I didn’t care. My sweaty hands pawed at the door knob, my pulse raced heavily in my throat. I tore open the door and raced down the steps. When I reached the gate, I paused. I heard him behind me now, begging me to stay.

“You’ll die.” He said again. “Don’t do it Syd, please.”

My chest rattling, I opened the gate, and took a step forward.