He has always lived in this house alone. He bought it after the divorce. She got the other house, the one where he’d never felt at home. But this house has always been his. It resembles him in its rough care, its lack of pretension, the way it is full to the brim with things invisible to a casual passerby.
There were no children to consider, which eased their separation. Their union created nothing beyond the monotony of longing. There were no marital possessions to which he was particularly attached. He let her have whatever she wanted. That seemed fair, since he believed he was the one who was at fault. He didn’t know how or why, but he was certain he was the one.
This is a sprawling home. Most would think it too large for a single person, yet he has managed to fully possess every room. He once knew where everything was. Not so much anymore. Still, he believes he could find specific items if he were sufficiently motivated.
There is a locked room for which he doesn’t have a key. If he could get in, it might be handy for more storage. Or it might be full of the debris from some other life. Better to leave it locked, he thinks, than to risk additional complication.
Like most old houses this house has its own set of noises. Creaks and moans and unintelligible whispers, amplified because of all he has accumulated, supplies for projects never completed nor even begun, souvenirs and remembrances of events past, objects he might give away someday to all his theoretical friends, and so many useful containers, which because of their great numbers have been rendered useless.
All these objects evince their own sounds as gravity shifts them about, as they slide and fall and clash one against the other. Then there are the rustlings and chewings of vermin, infestations which he tries to pretend do not exist because he does not see them, but which are every bit as real as gravity, magnetism, and mortality.
But it is the other sounds which are most disconcerting; the footsteps, the breathing, the weeping, the drag and rub of some injured body part. These are the sounds he cannot account for, the sounds which haunt. These unexplained resonances have robbed him of countless nights of sleep.
He is not a naive old man. He is aware that, whatever the circumstances, if you listen hard enough you will always hear something. It is in the nature of the human imagination to fill in the gaps. So likely whatever he hears is not touchable or seeable, but that does not mean it is not there.
Most days he wastes his time prowling the goat trails meandering between the towering piles of his miscellanea, peering into the strata demarcating the years he has spent in this house. Whenever a piece of paper he never noticed before—part of a letter, a magazine article, an advertising flyer, a newspaper story—finds its way to the outside of a stack, he stops and takes notice. He can discern no obvious mechanism by which such messages could travel to flag his attention, and yet it happens on a regular basis.
Sometimes these missives appear to share a theme: children starving in Africa, children missing in Atlanta, the devastating tolls from wars and famines and criminally negligent parents. He never knows what he is supposed to do with such information. He is intensely aware of his own lack of effectiveness just in the realities which immediately concern him—cooking, companionship, filling the time during his largely idle days—so what could he possibly offer as a solution to the important troubles of the day? Is the purpose of these notes simply to make him feel more miserable?
On some days the messages appear to align in an apparent attempt to deliver wisdom of some personal relevance. A flyer advertising adult education courses in art. A notice about a new social program at the Senior Center, unfortunately ten years out of date. A snippet of a letter from his ex-wife expressing regret and requesting a meeting, on stationery so old it is crumbling. He has no memory of her expressing regrets of any sort, nor does he remember receiving such a letter. Could some awful perpetrators have planted this communication for the purpose of causing him pain?
The house sounds better at night and he cannot imagine why this would be. Is there some quality in daylight which cancels sound? Or maybe he is less distracted after the sun goes down.
Sometimes at night he crawls out of bed and with flashlight in hand and tours each room looking for something, although he cannot say exactly what. He keeps the beam low, bathing the trail in front of him. The paths are never completely clear. There is always some debris scattered over the floor. With every step he soils things. He breaks things, but such incidental damage cannot be helped. By keeping the beam low he can move around without toppling the stacks, and he can imagine some empty space beyond the reach of his flashlight, even though he knows such stretches of emptiness do not exist in his home.
His accumulations have given many rooms in the house a rough similarity. Since most of his furniture is disguised or buried there is no appreciable difference between a bedroom and a living room, a kitchen, or a sunroom. He uses the bathroom outside and washes himself with a hose. He eats food out of cans squatting in the corner like an old, hunched cat. He sleeps somewhere along the goat trails, or where piles have fallen, climbing on top of the ruins. He imagines himself large, a giant sprawled across the rubble of some ancient city, able to rest wherever and whenever he pleases.
He ventures upstairs less and less. There is where most of the sounds come from, the footsteps and the sighs and the whispers too faint and far away to understand. He will never comprehend their warnings of imminent collapse. But so much has collected on the staircase that safe passage has become an impossibility.
Like most homeowners he has closets in his house, although he does not remember their exact locations. He has no idea what might be in any of these closets other than an assortment of clothing which no longer fits. He has vague memories of keepsakes of some value. At least if they are in the closets they cannot be stolen. He cannot reach them in any case. He likes to imagine that hidden within their recesses is a fine legacy for the progeny he will never have.
Like his experience with audible phenomena, he has discovered that late in the night, if he looks hard enough, some cloudiness, some unexplainable shadows, some vague wraiths do finally appear. He lacks adequate knowledge as to their nature, and they will not identify themselves or answer any of his carefully worded questions, but he still speculates about the identity of these visions.
There is someone he once longed to be, the one who exceeds his own capabilities. Surely that person exists somewhere within this deep morass, negotiating the paths and seeking some opportunity.
There is the life he wanted to have, populated by all those kindred souls he has never met. Too many to squeeze into such a crowded shamble of a house.
There is the body he wanted, the words he was never able to find, the missing partner, the unoffered job, the unachieved wisdom, the fortune unacquired.
These forms and half-forms exist somewhere, if not within this exact architecture, at least in some other he is yet to find.
Now in his late years there is increasing evidence of screeches and rasps and doors and windows opening and closing sight unseen, cold spots and endless drips and spaces where the geometry makes no sense.
In the next room a hideous memory repeats itself again and again, and he is helpless with no detectable means of stopping it.
He wonders if these apparitions might be the result of prolonged disappointment, of too many opportunities missed, too few chances taken.
He has played it safe for far too long, and an unrewarding solitude has been the unhappy result.
Of course he has become forgetful. He doesn’t always remember the events which have brought him distress. This might be a blessing. At least that’s what he tells himself. But the few advantages brought by degeneration are short lived.
He is aware that pareidolia is another possible explanation. Human beings are always seeking meaning, and sometimes they are so desperate for it they find it in the most unpromising materials. The face of Jesus in a slice of toast, a long-lost friend or even the love of one’s life hidden within an obscure and distant landscape. Better to find these things in some inanimate object than in the face of an unwilling stranger, but still, in the end, a waste of his limited time.
He gazes at the phantom standing before him, as it trembles and shakes in righteous anger. It has finally come for him, this fetch, its breath an all-too-solid haze, its reach skeletal and frightening. His desolation.
