January 3rd, 2023 4:55 pm
With great sympathy, I shall write about an old man next door. From what his neighbors gathered, he has lived there alone for the past 40 years. Half of that presumption was true. Therefore, no one on his street made any particular effort to talk to him. Even if hypothetically an effort was made, he was seldom seen outside of his house. Not once in people's memories had they seen him check the mail or take in his groceries once. Every household held a different notion of what he looked like and who he was. Some accused the old man of outrageous things like being a serial killer, or worse a pedophile. Others claimed that his face was disfigured and he hid in his home to avoid prying eyes. Regardless of the conflicting speculation, everyone all wondered the same thing, how did he earn money if he was never seen outside?
This was before when working from home was feasible. Most households had a landline at that point, but early enough to where he did not need to rely on one to live day to day. He was written off to be a grouchy old man who kept to himself. His front lawn for several years now has been brown and dead. It was once well-manicured by a gardener who came on the third Saturday of each month and kept a brilliant shade of green that was now lifeless. The only other evidence of his existence was an occasional light turned on in the middle of the night, between the hours of 8 pm and 2 am. Light would seep through the drawn shutters for about 15 minutes before being shut off for the remainder of the night. The children who grew up on this street went through their entire adolescence without ever figuring out who lived there if anyone at all. They spent summer nights staking out in the thicket behind the old man's house, some nights the light never even turning on. When they were teenagers, the kids checked his mailbox routinely out of curiosity, and yet not once was there even a single letter addressed to him, not even one pamphlet.
This group of kids all graduated from high school and moved off to college, inevitably forgetting all about the old man's house. However, one of the kids (now a grown man) came back to visit his parents' home after finishing his undergraduate degree. His name was Dominik, he was one of the 'younger' kids interested in the old man's house. He was now 24 years old, his youth still intact but fraying at the edges like a well-loved blanket. His parents' home was directly opposite the old man's house, his childhood bedroom window a crow's nest to keep watch on the house. After having dinner with his parents and a few drinks, he bid them good night and went up to his once-familiar room. He sat on his old wood chair and peered out the ajar window, feeling the cool breeze kiss his flushed cheeks. His eyes like magnets were drawn to the old man's house. Even at his grown age his curiosity persisted and filled him with thoughts of the most far-fetched and exaggerated theories of the resident. He sat watching the house, his eyes flicking from one window to the next, anticipating and hoping to see one of the lights turn on. But none of them did, his curiosity now turning to some perverted desire fueled by alcohol to investigate the old man's home and see for himself with his own eyes who the old man was.
He continued waiting for exactly another hour from when he had that thought, checking his wristwatch frequently until exactly 15 minutes after 2 in the morning. He took the side door from inside the garage to go outside to avoid alerting his parents. A thick fog had fallen over the street, engulfing his vision in a dreamlike haze. Light from overhead streetlamps cut through and cast shadows from shrubbery and houses creating the illusion of ghastly beings waiting in anticipation for Dominik to venture into the house. The mailbox was the closest he had ever gotten to the house, now obscured in darkness the details of the exterior appeared more decrepit than under the morning sun. He stood for several minutes before the front door, his breaths shallow, straining his ears to hear any evidence of life. The front door was locked to no surprise, he gently attempted to twist the knob to no avail. He retreated down the steps and began circling the house searching for another point of entry. The side door was locked as well, he peered the small window in through a crack in the blinds, the faint moonlight illuminating a room of absolute squalor filled with piles of what appeared to be books, papers, magazines, and pamphlets, strewn over every visible surface of the home. He tried to make out more details of the room, but the mess continued as far as he could see through the blinds.
He continued to search for an unlocked door, the back patio door was locked, and every window was locked. Each attempt caused more and more anxiety, anticipating one of the lights to abruptly turn on and be met with the old man's angry eyes. But none of the lights ever turned on, no matter how much noise he made or how many doors he attempted to open, no sound came from within. Dominik became desperate, knocking on each door and window, but still no response. He was convinced that the old man was waiting inside, poised like a rattlesnake about to lunge and strike at him. He pressed his ear to the door, holding his, waiting for any sound to seep through the door. There was nothing.
The backyard was slightly more lively than the front, a negligible improvement to most. But Dominik took note of the blades of grass stubbornly growing from the hard dirt in protest, each blade shimmering white under the moon and casting dramatic shadows across the yard. He continued looking around him, squatting down and returning his gaze to the house. A brief shimmer caught his eye from the dark void beneath the back deck, like from a shard of a broken glass bottle. He crawled under the deck, pressing his body to the earth, and began searching for the source of the brief light, letting his eyes adjust to the almost complete darkness before continuing to search. To his left, a small window leading to perhaps a basement stood, about 3 feet across and 2 feet tall. He dragged himself through the dirt toward it, trying his best to stifle his coughing to maintain stealth. He stopped before the window, straining his eyes in an attempt to make out anything on the inside, wiping away grime from the glass in an attempt to better his vision. The perimeter of the window was covered in a thick layer of soot and dirt, Dominik took an edge of his sleeve and wiped it away in an attempt to dislodge the window. After several times struggling, he finally slid the window open, enough room for him to slide inside. He assumed the window opened out to the basement, shining the small flashlight he kept in his jacket pocket inside. Compared to the upstairs room he looked into, the room he was looking at was cluttered but orderly. He gingerly let himself down from the window, landing quietly on his two feet with the flashlight secured between his teeth.
For several moments, he stayed motionless in a squatting position, surveying the room. The air reeked of mildew and was heavy with moisture, clinging to his skin to mix with his sweat as it beaded down his brow. His throat constricted with fear, restricting his shallow breaths as he mustered up the concentration to alleviate his anxiety. He looked down at his feet, a thick layer of dust caked the entire floor. He remained close to the ground as he strained his head to look around the shelves he was hiding from, noticing that every inch of the floor was covered in a thick layer of dust, evident that no one had ventured down there in a significant amount of time. He slid to the floor, sitting for about half an hour, listening for sounds from upstairs, his eyes tracing the wood beams running overhead, each one showing significant signs of decay, perhaps even termites based on the small holes throughout each one. He made sure to be cognizant of the decay when he would go upstairs to that room. He eventually regained his composure, traveling across the basement to the base of the stairs leading up. Before he ascended, he did a few laps around the room with a flashlight in hand, careful not to topple any of the neatly stacked piles of boxes and books. They were labeled in sloppy handwriting, completely illegible to Dominik, save for the few numbers marking a handful of them. Creating a nonsensical sequence that he did not even bother deciphering. In the second to last corner before making a full lap, he noticed tucked behind a shelf a massive sheet of red and green fabric hanging from an overly wide clothing hanger from a long nail in the wall, about 7 feet from the floor and dimly illuminated from the same window he used to enter. It was the only item in the room with any significant color, everything else paling in color in shades of grey and white.
A new smell came from above him as he made his way up the stairs, one of iron, reminding him of the smell of rusted storage crates permeating his senses. The air smelled dead, he could not put his finger on it, lacking any moisture and completely stale. As he saw outside, every room retained the same level of disarray as the first room that he saw. A seemingly endless supply of papers and books filled each room, bizarre symbols drawn onto some walls with charcoal, foreign and unfamiliar to Dominik. He nervously paced between rooms, looking around each corner with great discretion. In the kitchen, all the cabinets were thrown open, full of neat rows of identical cans of creamed corn, each label facing the same way as if placed deliberately. Even in the cabinets underneath the counter, he only saw the same sight, cans lining shoulder to shoulder like a firing squad. He was incredibly off-put by the seemingly deliberate attempt to concern prying eyes. An important detail to note however was that the kitchen unlike the entire rest of the house was void of dust and free of filth. No items rested on the counter, and no dishes in the sink. He carefully examined each window to find that the view outside did not align with the neighborhood. Before his eyes, an expansive pasture painted a benign shade of periwinkle under the arrival of the morning. He strained his eyes, there were no houses or structures in the house's vicinity. He frantically went window to window, reconfirming what he saw, and found that the view from the kitchen was indeed not an illusion. Returning to the kitchen he found a small light blue moleskin resting in the center of the kitchen island, already opened flat facing toward him. It contained a chronicle of diary entries, he skimmed the first few entries searching for a name, finding two, Martin and Candice. He turned the journal over, trying to find any more details but found none. He opened it back to the first entry, the date written on the top of the page. It went as follows:
May 7th 1958
I seem to have misplaced my last diary, Candy thinks I forgot it at the cafe but I don't remember ever bringing it there. As much as I liked that one, I am taking a liking to this new one that she got me. It makes it harder to forget it and now every time I see the color turquoise, I think of her. I definitely got lucky, didn't I? Soon I'll finally be done with my degree and we'll finally be able to live somewhere nice. I've always dreamt of getting a little bungalow with her back home. I'll start up my firm and one day we'll have a family of our very own. We'll have a dog too, go to a local charity shop and find all the furniture we need. Candy has been hinting at getting married, but I'm still searching for the right ring for her. Maybe even my grandma's old ring, it's quite a beauty with one of those big diamonds cut into the shape of a teardrop. She passed away before I even started school, and for the time since I keep the ring hidden in plain sight, I wrap it in cloth and always place it in my breast pocket. I'm trying to bide my time, finish school, and quietly save money to pay for our wedding without the help of either of our parents. I hope to have our ceremony about a year from now in the warm late spring, rather than rushing to get married during the winter. Until then I'll just enjoy the mounting tension between the two of us and savor it while it lasts.
Dominik read the first entry a few times, dissecting each sentence in his head and trying to piece together the personality of the old man. He flipped through the pages with his thumb and index finger, noticing that as the entries progressed, the handwriting devolved into chicken scratch and the entry dates further and further between each other. At random, he selected an entry. It went as follows:
September 4th 1960
Candy and I have been married for 16 months now, I still find that my heart swells with warmth even after this time spent married. Today we spent it together as for once I had a day off. We went out for lunch to eat at Sherry's Diner again, Candy ate her usual chicken cobb salad and I of course ate fried chicken and collared greens with a sweet tea. We shared a plate of okra with a dollop of mayonnaise to dip it in, which never fails to fulfill us. We've been trying for a baby for quite a while now, Candy's doctor said that she should track her cycle so we can have a baby. I always wanted a little boy to raise, and teach him the ropes of being a man. Playing catch with him. But I guess I wouldn't mind a daughter either, of course, that's when Candy steps in and I just protect both of the girls at all costs. That's my purpose as a father.
Over two years between the entries, even without reading anything between them, he was able to in his head develop a picture of who once lived here, carefully concocting a fleshed-out narrative. However, he noticed that the dates of the entries came from almost 50 years ago. Again flicking through the diary, he stopped at the final entry about a third from the last page. He strained his eyes to make out the handwriting, several spots on the page shriveled and ink blotches evident of the page being wet at one point. At last, he was able to decipher the date at the top of the page and some of the written words in sections. It went as follows:
January 3rd 1961
This was the first Christmas I spent alone. I didn't even bother putting up a tree this year or any lights. I stayed up all night, reminiscing. I remember our first Christmas together. We were in our sophomore year of high school. I gifted her a silver locket with a picture of us in it and baked her peach cobbler, her favorite dessert. She gave me this nice collared shirt saying how handsome it'd make me look, it had these thin grey vertical stripes on it. I still have it even though I'm too fat to wear it now. I'm glad I did. She also gave me a pretty photograph of herself. I got it framed after, I still have it. I've been looking at it all night thinking about that Christmas with her. I got a nice frame for it too. It's like I can sleep next to her as she watches me from the bedside stand.
I'm awfully lonely now.
All I've been able to do is fantasize about holding you again, holding our child too. I never even got to meet them. I'm haunted by the fact that I'll never be able to experience the joy of growing old with you. I wish you were still here, just one more day with you. I wish I could just feel your warmth in my embrace. It is awfully cold now, so unbelievably cold. I repeat every single conversation we had in my head, clinging onto and savoring every last word that left your beautiful lips. Oh, to hear it at least once more.
I remember once we were talking about God. We were both raised in Catholic houses, we both went to church every Sunday but still, we didn't believe in Him or an afterlife. But now I tell myself to believe in Him if it means that I can see you just one more time. Please be waiting for me. I am terrified that as time progresses the delicate details of you fade from my memory as you drift from my grip.
If He was indeed real as we were taught as children, why did he take you and our child away from life? What is his grandiose plan for us? It eludes me. Why did you have a miscarriage then? You never drank, you never smoked. I made sure to read all those damn cookbooks to make sure you got those right nutrients. Then why is it? Why? . . .
After that point, the handwriting was completely illegible. He questioned whether they were even written in English. Over three entire pages followed what he read but not one word was decipherable, save for the final three words.
With Love,
Martin
He shuttered, a sudden chill falling over his body and pricking his exposed skin. A sudden odor filled his nose, wrinkling at the scent of decay, like spoiled meat. He gently closed the journal, returning it to its original spot on the countertop. He followed the smell, the paranoia he felt in the basement returning to him in pulsating waves, walking closer and closer back to the living room where the putrid odor originated from. Entering into the living room, the smell became unbearable, lifting the collar of his shirt in an attempt to cover his nose. The room was cleared of any furniture, only the familiar stacks of paper waste covering every surface. In the center of the room facing the opposite wall was a well-loved brown recliner, its surface stained black in a shape reminiscent of a man's shadow, reeking of death. He looked away in disgust, shifting his eyes out the window to the expansive field now illuminated by the soft golden glow of daybreak, and saw two headstones casting long shadows toward him, one slender and taller with the other much smaller but close together. He thought back to the diary.
That’s what he told me he found when we went out for drinks a few nights ago after several years of not seeing each other. I certainly remember when we were kids always wondering about the old man, but that was all conjecture. He was in a fit of hysteria. I always knew Dominik was deeply troubled. He spent almost the entire time when we were at the bar frantically trying to convince me of this elaborate narrative he made. I reluctantly listened to every last word he told me, nodding along but still questioning his story.
“I see . . . so if that’s the case then, I’d like to see,” I told him after listening for several hours. It was already late at that point. My thought was that if were to indeed double down, he would show me tonight. And I was indeed correct.
“Why of course, don’t you believe me? I’d never lie to you. Here, it’s getting late. Alright . . . just . . . just come with me and I’ll show you, okay? I’m telling the truth, okay? There’s nothing for me to hide, I’d never lie to you.” he answered in a rushed tone, his demeanor shifting to one of a trapped animal, his eyes darting around like a lizard’s, avoiding eye contact with me and beads of sweat forming at his hairline and running down his face.
I checked my wristwatch, a quarter past midnight. I flicked my eyes back at him, pausing for a moment before returning to look at him, thinking.
That’s what he told me he found when we went out for drinks a few nights ago after several years of not seeing each other. I certainly remember when we were kids always wondering about the old man, but that was all conjecture. He was in a fit of hysteria. I always knew Dominik was deeply troubled. He spent almost the entire time when we were at the bar frantically trying to convince me of this elaborate narrative he made. I reluctantly listened to every last word he told me, nodding along but still questioning his story.
“I see . . . so if that’s the case then, I’d like to see,” I told him after listening for several hours. It was already late at that point. My thought was that if were to indeed double down, he would show me tonight. And I was indeed correct.
“Why of course, don’t you believe me? I’d never lie to you. Here, it’s getting late. Alright . . . just . . . just come with me and I’ll show you, okay? I’m telling the truth, okay? There’s nothing for me to hide, I’d never lie to you.” he answered in a rushed tone, his demeanor shifting to one of a trapped animal, his eyes darting around like a lizard’s, avoiding eye contact with me and beads of sweat forming at his hairline and running down his face.
I checked my wristwatch, a quarter past midnight. I flicked my eyes back at him, pausing for a moment before returning to look at him, thinking.
“Why not,” I answered, dryly smiling at him, “for old times sake, hm?”
*
I walked with him back to his old house, crossing the street toward the old man’s house. Indeed none of the lights were on, and per his instruction, we looped around to the back. However, the back door was ajar, upon looking at the knob, it was evident of forced entry. Thinking back to what he told me, he said that he crawled under the back patio into the basement. But for the moment, I went against bringing it up and just playing along. I followed him through the back door into a dining room, indeed every surface covered in papers. Picking one up, a wrinkled bank statement, its contents rendered illegible except for the bank’s logo at the top. I cast it aside without a second thought. I continued following him, and every few moments he turned back to say something, I was too preoccupied with the decrepit state of the house to even acknowledge him.
I followed him into the living room, the air heavy with the smell of spoiled meat as he described it prior in the bar. He stopped before the recliner chair, his eyes unnaturally wide and lips pulled back to reveal a sadistic smile full of rotting teeth. I looked down at the chair, a man’s silhouette stained black into the unwashed fabric.
“What do you think happened to the old man, Dominik? Do you think he died?” I asked him, trying my best to conceal my mounting fear.
*
I walked with him back to his old house, crossing the street toward the old man’s house. Indeed none of the lights were on, and per his instruction, we looped around to the back. However, the back door was ajar, upon looking at the knob, it was evident of forced entry. Thinking back to what he told me, he said that he crawled under the back patio into the basement. But for the moment, I went against bringing it up and just playing along. I followed him through the back door into a dining room, indeed every surface covered in papers. Picking one up, a wrinkled bank statement, its contents rendered illegible except for the bank’s logo at the top. I cast it aside without a second thought. I continued following him, and every few moments he turned back to say something, I was too preoccupied with the decrepit state of the house to even acknowledge him.
I followed him into the living room, the air heavy with the smell of spoiled meat as he described it prior in the bar. He stopped before the recliner chair, his eyes unnaturally wide and lips pulled back to reveal a sadistic smile full of rotting teeth. I looked down at the chair, a man’s silhouette stained black into the unwashed fabric.
“What do you think happened to the old man, Dominik? Do you think he died?” I asked him, trying my best to conceal my mounting fear.
He narrowed his eyes at me, “Isn’t it obvious to you? I think he killed himself. I mean after what he wrote in the journal, I would have too. I don’t blame him. Seems like no one would have missed him anyway.”
“Where is he then?” I asked. For a split moment, his eyes darted toward the floor behind me and returned to me. His smile faltered, eyes filled with confusion. He stood there for several minutes, motionless. I backed away slowly, maintaining my eyes on him. I exited the back of the house, returned outside, and walked home. I knew what he did. Why I did not say anything or tell the police? I honestly don’t know. I just wanted to avoid the headache. Dominik already killed the old man anyway, it was irrelevant now. I leave in two days to return to Chicago. I do not have time to linger in this wretched town with time I do not have nor care to give. The weather should be warm enough to have a picnic on Montrose Beach. I will be back soon.
“Where is he then?” I asked. For a split moment, his eyes darted toward the floor behind me and returned to me. His smile faltered, eyes filled with confusion. He stood there for several minutes, motionless. I backed away slowly, maintaining my eyes on him. I exited the back of the house, returned outside, and walked home. I knew what he did. Why I did not say anything or tell the police? I honestly don’t know. I just wanted to avoid the headache. Dominik already killed the old man anyway, it was irrelevant now. I leave in two days to return to Chicago. I do not have time to linger in this wretched town with time I do not have nor care to give. The weather should be warm enough to have a picnic on Montrose Beach. I will be back soon.