What was once a perfect rectangle was now a soggy rhombic shape. The white paint over th lintel had faded and brown splinters stuch out of the wood. The floor creaked under my weight as we walkthrough the crooked doorframe. The smell of the room eaked into my nostrils. Rotten wood, mildew, and the rich smell of earth lay upon the air in layers that had been deposited year after year. The house had been abandoned by someone from an older generation. It sat surrounded in a grove of trees so long ago even the spirits that may have once haunted it had long been laid to rest.
Around my feet lay bits of wood and carpet. A recliner sat in the corner that had been reapolstered by moss. In my mind's eye I could see the man who once sat there with a cigarette or a pipe. A grin raised the corner of his mouth as he read the paper. The news was that the boys were kicking Nazi tail in Europe. In my mind, he even looked a little like a cross between Roosevelt and Churchill except for his denim overalls.
To my left was another sagging doorway. The ancient gas stove sat against the wall, The cast iron burners were well used and now rusted to the top. "Now you're cookin' with gas" Bugs Bunny said in my mind. The counters had been taken out at some point in time and a heavy ice box sat in the corner. I could see a women with a glass of milk straight from the creamery via the milk man that morning in her hand. Most signs of the times that have changed.
I dare not ascend the stairs but looking up I see rectagular sillouettes where pictures once hung. My heart sank. I would never know those people, nor their life. I would never know what it was like to work with my hands to build a life of good times and bad. I would never know what it was like to fight through anger and melancholy like people once did without the aid of medication. I would not know what it was like to walk by faith without the nagging pressure to be tolerant and to throw away old values. This too is a vain chasing after the wind though. I will never know what it was like to lose a child to smallpox or to find out that he will spend his life with a body that was twisted by polio.
Life is hard for is all. The old house beneath my feet is good. As good as anything on Earth can be, but it is still rotten to the core. My own house with it's modern conveniences and also it's sterility is not more or less evil. It is simply difference. The pain that I live through, the joys that I enjoy, they are truly not any different that what the people in this house lived through. I play with the hand that I am dealt, and there is no way to cheat the dealer.
What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done,
and there is nothing new under the sun.
Ecclesiastes 1:9
