More than walls

© Brenda Cox

When we finally arrived, it was all there just like in that picture we had created in our minds after so many descriptions we had heard.

It was standing there, frozen in time, as if waiting for its owners to return.

Homes too have a soul. They encompass the feelings and memories their residents confide and build in them. The life we experience, the persons we shape ourselves to be, the laughter and tears we express, they all seep into the walls and are cautiously guarded like a well-kept secret.

It only takes a single breath to remember it all.

Also part of Friday Fictioneers

Advertisement

Trailing safe

© Ted Strutz

“I never knew what it was like to live your entire life in the same place, let alone the same neighbourhood or even country”. His eyes welled up whenever he would recount the story.

His audience gasped with excitement. For them, it was thrilling to have lived in so many places around the world, to have the opportunity to gain so much experience, to be somewhere different every so often.

But to Ted, that very lack of stability was the problem.

He had grown up knowing he could just pick up his house and leave – literally – whenever there was trouble.

Also part of Friday Fictioneers

Set in stone

©Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

It was part of their family heritage ever since her relatives remembered. But she was around to see it refurbished. The stone walls were whitened and reinforced and the interior completely renovated.

As a child, she pretended it was her castle and she was longing for her prince to come riding along on a white stallion.

Over the years, she stopped being so demanding though. He didn’t have to have a horse. And he didn’t have to be royal.

When she saw him approach, she realised that all that mattered was him being a decent person. And to love her.

 

Also part of Friday Fictioneers

The sound of rain on a tin roof

©J Hardy Carroll

Since they moved, they hadn’t been to their old neighbourhood. It had already been three years. They found themselves on their old street by chance, having taken a wrong turn.

It was still there, only seeming abandoned.

Their old studio. The one where they first met and became intimate. Where they shared their dreams and learnt about one another.

The one where they would crawl into each other’s arms to sleep on nights when their lullaby was the patter of rain on the tin roof.

Some sounds will always be associated to certain memories no matter how much time passes.

 

Also part of Friday Fictioneers

Making a house a home

“Home is not a place it’s a feeling”. It’s the sense you get that you are exactly where you want to be. With the people you want by your side. To create the memories that will last a lifetime. It’s the starting place of love, hope and dreams. It’s your refuge, your retreat, your safe haven. It’s the place where your heart will always be.

It may take bricks to build a house, but it takes so much more to build a home. Perhaps that is why it becomes all the more important when after roaming around countries and houses, you may finally decide on settling somewhere and begin to think longer-term. You start planning for a future without that sense of insecurity of “who knows where I’ll be by then”; when you’ve found where you want to be and want to build a home there.

We are the ones who create the homes we live in. We fill them with love, with dreams, with memories and the longer-term prospects that a beautiful story can start from right there.

“Life takes you to unexpected places. Love brings you home”.

Disconnected

“OK, who turned the modem off again?”

“Did the cat pull the cable or is the bunny munching on it again?”

It was a usual day at the Thompsons’ house. Four people were all surfing the web, sending emails, or downloading videos on all kinds of devices – smartphones, tablets, computers, even on the television itself.

“Can we call Carla again, mi hijo? I want to ask what happened with Juanita!” Even the grandmother had become accustomed to the wonders of a Skype call and she was really getting used to this technological marvel that brought people closer.

But today, there was a problem. Elliott was the first one to notice it. He couldn’t log on to the App store to download a new game and was beginning to get agitated. He had reached a level that was simply unsurpassable in all his existing games. He needed something new.

Jenna was also upset. She could not see the rest of her favourite reality show as the streaming was too slow and would constantly break up.

Charlie was complaining because he could not finish his work and couldn’t even send an email to warn of the delay.

Sandra was also yelling. She could not find anything else to do and had grown up with the Internet. From what she remembered, she had always lived a life online. How would she now check for social media updates? She felt extremely cut-off, isolated. “WTF!! It’s as if we’re back to the Stone Age!”

Will, the father of the family had just got off the phone with the service provider. There was a technical problem and the Internet could not be fixed today. Efforts would be made to solve it as soon as possible, but tomorrow was the earliest that could happen.

Panic ensued in the Thompson house. “How will we ever survive?!” was the main concern of the youngsters, while grandma lamented not being able to see her sister in Columbia today.

Will was aghast. What kind of a world are we living in? We have no Internet and suddenly, life as we know it is gone? Do they even know that people had more of a life before the Internet? People in the Stone Age perhaps lived a more fulfilling life than we do today, he thought.

So he decided to try a different tactic with his digitally-addicted family. He dug out the box of board games that was conveniently stuck in a corner and was gathering dust.

He was shocked to hear that the youngest members of the family had never even heard of the likes of Scrabble, Monopoly, even Jenga. So he set on a mission to rectify this. It required a lot of patience and calming down the constant Internet complaints. He was determined to teach these new dogs, old tricks. He was sure that once they get past the fact that they all involved more than a swipe or touch of the finger, it would be fun.

He was right. They all, including Sandra, soon forgot about the screens they were so attached to and began laughing their hearts out when bricks fell, words were misspelt and money was lost while the players were sent to jail! “This is awesome! How come we never did this before?” wondered Jenna. Charlie looked at his watch. It was three in the morning but nobody seemed to care. “Just one more round of Jenga please?” begged Elliott. And alas, there was life beyond the Internet, and it was enjoyable too!

Something spiky this way comes

It was a dark and stormy night.

It had to be, because nothing remotely as thrilling or exciting happens during a bright sunny morning. For example, you would never expect a thunderstorm to turn into a tornado that would gulp up your house when outside the birds are chirping gleefully, the sun is shining and there is not even a cloud in the sky.

So to set the atmosphere right for what would ensue, it was dark, stormy and all-in-all quite terrifying.

Amy and Adam were tucked up under their fleece blanket with a bowl of fresh popcorn steaming between them on the couch. They were watching a movie they had just downloaded. And outside the wind was howling.

Fittingly, Adam had chosen an action film to watch, and Amy often got scared, so much that she would jump up in her seat and pour popcorn all over the couch. Adam would just laugh and hug her tighter.

Little did they know, that while they were enjoying their night in, there was something creeping into their front lawn.

As the storm receded, and the wind subsided, the night became quieter. That was when Amy and Adam decided to go to bed.

But that was when he reached the outside of their front door.

Spikes all out, he remained there all night.

Until Amy, opened the door early the next morning and screamed.

The spikes had pierced her foot – she was used to walking around barefoot in the house, so it hurt even more.

But she forgot all about the pain when Adam picked up the perpetrator and she stared into his puffy eyes.

Hedgehogs are cute. And they too are scared of dark and stormy nights.