Historic Home

Photo by Lera Nekrashevich on Unsplash

Today, I’m trying something a little different. One of my other favorite genres is flash fiction, or microfiction, or whatever you like to call a short short story. I remember reading a book of flash fiction by Joyce Carol Oates (who calls them “miniature narratives”) and just falling in love with the completeness of such short pieces. Today’s breath is an attempt to tell a big story in a small space.

Thomas walked into the house the first time on a whim. The sign out front said "Open House," and he was not yet ready to end his walk in this stately, tree-lined neighborhood. When he walked into the house, it wrapped its long years around him and held on. He made an offer that night.

Thomas lived in smaller and smaller sections of the house, delighting in the people who moved through the upstairs apartments. He hosted their lives with the same grace that the original owners hosted lavish parties in the third floor ballroom. By the end, he was living in a 5x5 corner of the front room -- a space carved out by the grand staircase one one side, his desk on the other, and his walker stationed as sentry.

When Thomas died, after a fall on the polished mahogany floor and months in the hospital, the house sighed. One by one, the furnaces sputtered and went out, leaving all the residents shivering under their elegant, tall ceilings. One by one, everyone moved out, shaking their heads to clear the last of a strange, cold mist that enveloped them in the house. The house stood empty of people. Birds and squirrels and small creatures of the neighborhood recognized the materials of the house as descendants of the outdoors. They nested in the walls and corners, beginning the long work of reopening all the closed spaces of the interior.