What's Left of the Old, Dripping House

I once had the life of a bachelor salesman, always on the move. I've never considered myself to be a true salesman but regardless, I had stuck with the job for seven years. Obviously there are always two sides of every aspect to be considered. Despite the inconvenience of constant traveling it paid decently well & most important of all, I got to visit the country’s hinterlands far from the madding crowds.

I was visiting one such hill-community on business that monsoon. Itching to finish my work & go running I sought the overcast evening’s beauty as prisoners seek sunlight, the minute my work was finished.

The vista tugged at my heart-strings & I lost myself in the various sights of the beautiful community, its people and the settlements dotting the slopes like little doll-houses. The trails led me up & down the residential areas, past the only bazaar in the hill-community. I waved to some folks & they waved back with friendly, warm smiles. I soon reached the western fringes of the village, surrounded by dense woods of towering fir and spruce trees covering every inch of the hillside.

And so the beautiful weather slyly lured me further from my lodge on the village outskirts. I had clearly misinterpreted its intention. The distant rain-heavy clouds gathered menacingly in a matter of an hour and enveloped the hills in a dripping, grey mantle.

Only then I realized I had drifted quite far for there wasn’t a soul in sight, not a single establishment I could rush to for shelter. All my wonder at beholding the rare sight of untainted serenity dissipated as I was instead left craving for company & warmth, drenched-to-the-bone and shivering.

Dusk was fast approaching & there was no other option but to run back the way I’d come—only, running was also a risky affair; one wrong step & I could have tumbled to death or even worse, suffered a broken ankle. Back in those days cell-phones were still six-seven years into the future so if it came to the worst, I didn’t have the luxury to call for help.

I decided to take it slow & steady and began to retrace my steps at a fast but cautious pace. To make matters worse, the path was overflowing with culverts & rills. My sneakers squelched in the mud and made movement a difficulty.

I came across the old house about ten minutes later, at the junction of an unused crossroad. I didn’t see it at first but the glow of fire coming through the window was what attracted my attention.

To call it a house would be wrong for it was in a condition beyond neglect, dilapidated beyond measure, covered by creepers, vines & the looming overhang of a giant fig tree. But my want for shelter & a burning hearth were strong. Through that darkening, wet world I headed toward the wooden structure, hoping that the person inside would not object my intrusion.

The moldy boards on the upraised porch made creaking protests at every step. The walls and ceiling showed uncountable signs of decadence, encroached upon by the wilderness. It must’ve been more than twenty-thirty years old and given the state of disrepair it was a miracle it had managed to stand that long.

I raised my hand to knock but just then, the door swung inwards of its own volition as if pushed by a sudden gust of wind.

It was like peering into a maw of darkness. A hearth crackled merrily in the fireplace at the hall’s extreme end. The room was so bare that made the place seem even more spacious in the surrounding shadows. On the only piece of furniture—a heavy armchair by the fireplace, sat a raggedy old man with thick, matted beard wearing patch-worked rags. His hair fell over the forehead in dirty clumps beneath which shone sparkling eyes regarding me with an air of grimness. From the looks of it, he seemed no more than a homeless beggar, a wino invading other’s property.

I greeted him, putting on my most persuasive smile & asked for his permission to enter. When he didn’t reply I tried to sweeten the deal by offering money. He still didn’t acknowledge. For a moment I thought I would have to continue my uncomfortable toil through the downpour. But then his head moved, he raised one thin, gnarly arm & beckoned me inside.

I entered, relieved to be near heat & dryness.

The room was leaking at the corners but compared to the environs outside and the pervading decrepitude it was pretty dry. My clothes were already soiled so I didn’t mind taking my place on the floor facing the old man. I introduced myself but he only continued to study me deeply. It was getting awkward because of his silence & those eyes twinkling beneath his broad, bushy eyebrows. The thought that I should get up & leave occurred to me.

Just then, he spoke. “Because I have agreed to offer you respite in the storm would you agree to listen to a story?”

Listening to him was like hearing rickety floorboards creak on a silent night. The voice oozed not only with age but also with a lack of frequent use, throaty & quavering. Judging by the squalor surrounding me it was likely the old-man didn’t get many visitors—or frequent chances to talk.

“Think carefully, for you will have to listen to it till the end.” He added as an afterthought.

His proposition made me laugh but I agreed wholeheartedly. It was just a story, right? And it seemed a much better option to pass the time than suffer uncomfortable silences.

“This place wasn’t always this old and crumbling, nor did it have the vile smell of rot & damp, as if a pack of rats lies dead & decaying inside the walls,” the old-man began.

“About thirty-six years ago a newly-wed young-man built this house for his wife. Not all places had roads then and this place was a junction-point connecting nearby settlements to each other and to the burgeoning town in the valley. The world was simple, the land and air still unmarred by deeds of man. This house radiated life then.”

His hoarse, wobbly voice was suggestive to such extent that it triggered images. I could picture the house, newly-built and full of sunlight; the windows and doors letting-in day’s brightness and hopes of future.

As the man went on I felt myself submerging in the flow of his words. Soon, I was spell-bound.

“They set-up their shop right outside the house, providing for the needs of passers-by: hot food & chai, courtesy the wife’s excellent culinary skills; fresh water from the nearby spring & many a-times, for the lone travelers exhausted after a long climb, a warm bed. People from adjoining settlements gathered outside in evenings to discuss matters big & small.

The couple made good decent living. Within five years they bore four children—twin boys & two girls, and supporting them was not an issue for a long while. There were factories & industrial complexes coming up in the valley at a rapid pace & almost all the residents of the hill-community were contributing to the wave of urbanization.”

He paused and regarded me for a moment, as if making sure I was listening. He scoffed before continuing—“This is where the good part ends…

“Their eldest children, the twins, had just turned ten and a fifth was on way when the economic depression hit the country. While money-makers & businessmen scrambled to minimize losses, the common man buckled under the weight of unemployment. The valley-town with its thriving economy was no less an exception. For the brand-new industrial complexes & factories it was a merciless bane.

“The chimneys & smokestacks fell silent; the ceaseless activity in the industrial complexes came to a stand-still. The resident workers from the hills went jobless in a matter of months. The town became a ghost-town in no time and the traffic passing the house trickled down.”

His lips didn’t move much but his long, thin fingers twirled rhythmically alongside the narrative. I continued to listen with rapt attention, my gaze affixed on the movement and my attention on every word he spoke.

“Things got better with time obviously, but for the inhabitants of this house it was only the beginning of struggle. About a year later concrete roads came up in these parts but sadly, none passed anywhere close to the house. Men in the villages headed into the plains to seek better opportunities and the couple could only watch them go. While the rest of the world sank and reemerged from the crisis the family only sank deeper into the mire of poverty, as if they’d been cut-off from fortune in every way.

“There was an additional mouth to feed. They tried to gather some money by doing odd-jobs in the villages but it wasn’t enough to send the kids to school besides providing sustenance. The contagious air of hopelessness spread inside the household from parent to offspring and their spirits slowly withered. The question of survival trumped over education. The elder kids would stay at home, fight and cry all day while their parents searched for ways to gather two square-meals and had their share of arguments—their adversities worsened each night.”

The old-storyteller stopped and cocked his head in my direction. When he spoke my first impulse was he had read my mind.

“You see, leaving for the city like other men from the community was not an option—all that they had they’d invested in the household and its upkeep. They sold what little they had for medicines when the kids fell ill and soon the woman was left with nothing but the last piece of jewelry inherited from her mother-in-law.”

I had never seen or experienced poverty in my life, or hunger. My reflections on the story so far were dark; the account of the miseries the residents had gone through like hard slaps that shook me profoundly.

“It was a cancer-of-the-mind that consumed the man’s patience and sanity,” the old-man laughed. “He turned to the bottle for solace, as those weakened by their burdens are wont to do. But even cheap liquor had a price. Things began to disappear from the household—furniture, kitchen-utensils, knick-knacks of children and such. Then his daily need became even more apparent when the wife noticed her last jewelry had gone missing. He was gaining notoriety for creating nuisance in inebriation and that confirmed her fears.

“She confronted her husband one night after he returned from his drinking session—they generally went on till late-night and for a better part of the day on festivities. The wife demanded answer and the demon of violence showed its face for the first time.”

He sighed and hunched forward, elbows on the knees. “He hit his wife that day, and the next day and the next until it became a daily ritual. He would drown his worries in drinks and vent it all out on his wife as if she was responsible for everything.”

His voice dropped as he continued—“None of the villagers came to take a single peek when they heard the woman crying and begging for help. Burdened by cowardice, none batted an eyelid on seeing the woman walking around the bazaar with a blackened eye or puffed lips. Even when she turned-up wailing with a broken arm they looked the other way. In a village of the old, womenfolk and children there was no one to stop the drunkard. They were satisfied with whispering their disapprovals & the fact that ‘it-was-their-personal-issue’ behind closed doors.”

The old-man laughed some more but I could not share in his mirth.

I was in a strange fixture, an uncomfortable one where a small part of me felt utterly depressed. I wanted to get up and leave without hearing his tale of despondency any further. But the other dominant self was held mesmerized by the old-man’s voice.

It was as if his words echoed inside me like voices ringing through long, empty corridors. His small glinting eyes were fixed upon me. I doubt if even avoiding his gaze was possible for my thoughts weren’t coherent; common sense and intuition were fast becoming indistinct whispers. I only wanted to listen further.

“His conscience might’ve awakened for a while,” my host looked into the flames as he said so - “for he managed to stay away from the bottle for a brief period. But reality is always ugly and exhausting for someone accustomed to finding reason at the bottom of the bottle. He did not have the courage to deal with his harsh circumstances. He & cheap liquor had become companions-for-life. So when the drinking resumed after a hiatus he compensated for every single day he had not touched the bottle. He wouldn’t come home for days then pop-up suddenly to procure what little furniture remained in the house.”

Now that he wasn’t looking at me I felt I could breathe easy. The small voice telling me to get up and leave became dominant, just for a moment, before the old-man turned back his attention to me.

“The wife you see, she was a different case altogether, much stronger than her drunkard husband. Their arguments were still heard but there would be no evident signs of any physical affliction. She walked with her head-held-high. She’d managed to withhold her husband’s hurtful advances.”

“About a month later gossip began to circulate that she was leaving the community to go live with some cousin of hers in the city. Courtesy the village grapevine word finally reached the ditch near the bazaar where the husband was found indigenously. He was sleeping-off last night’s swill, covered in his own puke. Lady Luck had smiled upon him in a game of cards the previous night and he had a fresh bottle to help him contemplate.

“By the time it was half-finished, he was raving to himself. People saw him pass, the bottle swinging by his side, his words incoherent & gait stumbling. They knew there was to be another face-off & they could not care less, once again hiding the wrong behind twisted logic.

“He might’ve wanted some remaining piece of jewelry or maybe he was outraged by the woman’s derring-do—as men have always been when a woman rises above conventions. But the residents in vicinity knew things weren’t going fine for the woman and for the very first time, the children—the screams in the wind said everything.

“Only two people in the entire community of two hundred could gather sufficient courage to put a stop to it, once & for all. They were an old-couple who took more than an hour to hike up the distance the drunkard had covered in half-the-time.

“When they reached this place…”

Just then, as if struck by a sudden whim he halted in mid-sentence, straightened in his seat. His features seemed to ripple in the light of the hearth’s dying flames. Cold sweat broke all over my body as his facial features sagged and stretched like molten wax. I was stunned but a wetness spreading beneath me did not let the shock last.

At first I couldn’t understand what the warm, dark fluid was. Then the metallic aroma struck my nostrils—blood!

My palms were dripping with it. Nausea and disgust triggered me into action and I was up on my feet. It felt like I was moving through jelly, slow and sluggish. I tried to shout but all that came out was a feeble croak.

The old-man was no more occupying the chair.

In his stead sat a much younger but weary, bedraggled man with blood-stained hands, gulping down the last reserves of his bottle.

Near his feet lay two children—a girl and a boy covered in blood, their faces smashed to pulp; holding onto one another even in death.

Panic & fear were making me see things. It had to be some sick parlor-trick the occupants of the house were playing on me—probably I had been drugged and it was all a vivid hallucination.

I reached the door and froze in mid-step—there were two more dead boys lying on the doorstep, with similar proportions, definitely older than the two near the fireplace.

Like the missing piece of a puzzle it fit to complete the picture—“The twins,” a thin whisper came out of my lips, like I’d been robbed of my voice. I slapped myself hard, hoping to shake-off the madness. The sting on my cheek told me I was still sane and conscious.

I looked back at the drunkard from the old-man’s story. He was only whispering inaudible words, seemingly oblivious to my presence.

There was movement behind me. The rickety stairs on the porch creaked and I caught an old couple approaching warily. I was standing in the doorway, right in front of their eyes, phrasing my words when the gentleman exclaimed—“God help us! He has gone mad, look what evil he’s committed this time.” They stumbled on their heels at the sight of the dead twins.

The drunkard jolted out of his musings and got up. “I did not intend to do this, please understand,” he slurred, trying to act sober but failing despite his attempts to feign sobriety. Only embers remained in the hearth and what they revealed was no regular individual of a functioning society. His barbaric act and appearance made the couple gasp.

I could only turn to-&-fro between them, unable to understand why they were completely ignoring me. They were acting as if I didn’t even exist. I stepped aside impulsively as the drunkard stepped through the pool of blood of his own children, still clasping his depleted bottle. The strong whiff of booze sailed past me in his wake.

“I did...what…was right for my family,” he spoke in pauses, like he was enlightening them about the merits of drinking. “They are no more - in pain - no more poor, and hungry.” He stammered and hitched.

He stepped over the twin boys and on to the porch. The older couple retreated further fearing what he might do in a fit of lunacy. But the drunkard only took the last swig from the bottle before articulating some cryptic words—“I have to go…the voice inside my head, it’s calling me,” the bottle dropped.

I thought he intended to harm them and rushed to help in case he tried something like that. But my feet struck some obstacle in the doorway. Outside, the drunkard had descended the porch-steps, only a few feet away from the old-couple. Frantic with puzzlement, dread and mild irritation I tried again but it was as if an invisible barrier was impeding my exit. I shouted in agitation and didn’t even realize they’d not heard my voice.

Contrary to what I and definitely what the two poor fellows had expected the drunkard veered away and sprinted towards the edge of the precipice visible through a thin cluster of trees.

He kept crying and screaming at thin air. All I could do was stare agape as the killer-husband and father of five leaped-off the cliff’s edge. He surrendered himself to gravity, just as he had surrendered to his vices.

I screamed, unable to bear the sight but some imperceptible force seemed to drag me by the shoulders. I felt myself flying backward. My scream sounded as if it was coming from the other end of some long, dark tunnel. The world blurred…

I woke up with a start.

I was lying on my back near the empty armchair. The fireplace was cold & dry, like it hadn’t even seen the flicker of a flame in ages. The floor was grimy with dust but there was no dark blood, not even the dead children, the drunkard or the old-man. It was pitch dark like it had all been a dream—I touched the spot on my cheek still tingling mildly where I’d slapped myself.

The door was wide open and the night outside was clear with a hint of cloud-cover. The storm had moved on.

Then someone started to giggle in the black depths around me & reality sank its venomous fangs.

A spectral shadow was slouching in one corner of the room. I could only make out a hazy silhouette but I knew it was the old man. His glinting eyes beneath the arch of dense eyebrows made me shiver. I knew there-&-then it was something strange & dark I was experiencing. Or else I was going insane.

In any case the desire to run away from the doddering haunt was strong—flight over fight. But the door slammed into my face, plunging the room in absolute gloom. In the enclosed space the old man’s laughter reverberated like he was omnipresent.

I didn’t know I had wet my pants because all that mattered then was escape. I banged upon the door, pulled at the wooden handle but it would not budge.

The grating, whooping chuckles shifted outside as if the old-man was going round-&-round the house, deriving pleasure from my desperation. I ran hither-thither, looking for a possible exit and further-in came across a splintered and broken door swinging on rusty hinges.

Visible in the muted phantom-glow inside was a woman hacked-to-death, lying on the floor clutching her infant daughter covered in blood.

I yelped & bolted as the walls around me seemed to shift and change. Color seeped into the rotten, moldy wood. The house began to grow back to life like a video playing on fast-forward. As it reassembled itself the couple & the kids appeared out of thin air & the story played again before my eyes with stark clarity.

I didn’t want to see but everywhere I turned, despair & dissent jumped at me. The old-man’s chortling was outright evil but the visions running before my eyes were straight from Hell. The blood, the dead children and the drunkard flashed in-&-out of existence around me. I returned to the door, closed my eyes and pulled against whatever force held it from opening.

Another voice joined the cacophonous laughter outside—“The voice inside my head, it is calling me,” it went on a loop and I felt as if my head would explode.

I don’t know how prayers work but when the door swung open I came out a true believer. I ran muttering the names of all prime-deities in one breath. My faculties took over control as soon as my feet left the porch.

It must have been way past midnight when I finally reached the silent bazaar. The walk to the lodge seemed to take even longer and by the time I entered my room, I was drained and exhausted. I had never felt that tired before. Sleep overcame me the moment my head hit the pillow.

When I woke up it was late in the morning. I was aching all over as if an angry mob had beaten me with sticks. It took me some effort to get up from the bed.

The threadbare rug on the floor was splattered from my mud-caked shoes & pants I hadn’t even bothered to change. I doffed my clothes, stepped under the warmth of the shower.

It was then I noticed the reflection in the mirror over the washbasin.

I turned just-in-time to catch a glimpse of an old, lined face before steam clouded over the mirror’s surface.

My tormentor from last evening had followed me back! The horrendous moments I’d spent inside the house recurred. What more did he want from me?

I waited for something to happen but it was just me & my wheezy breaths. With a hammering heart I swiped the mirror to reveal my pursuer.

It wasn’t the old man in the reflection yet I could hear his laughter ringing in some corner of my mind. Then I saw the birthmark on the stranger’s loose, baggy chest with curly frills of white body hair; then back at the reflection: in the drooping, wrinkled eyes & a liver-spotted sagging face full of melancholia. His thinning pate was mottled with dense patches of dandruff & more liver-spots.

Realization hit home with a devastating punch to the gut and my world came crashing down upon my head. A low moan escaped my lips; the old-man’s reflection parted his mouth simultaneously. The bathroom was warm but I was trembling and sweating. The truth was so obvious.

It was my own reflection. The how of it had ceased to matter, I had aged from a thirty-something to a sixty-something in a matter of hours. Even Benjamin Button wasn’t known to age backward so rapidly. There was no explanation I could find for my sudden ageing but that it was real was beyond any shred of doubt.

I wailed, hit the mirror with my fist hoping the spell would break if the mirror was destroyed—only the mirror broke and I remained an old-man with bleeding knuckles.

Covering myself from head-to-toe I went back to the house later. I was too ashamed and self-aware to step-out but not a single person noticed me. I was just another old-man to them.

The house was still there at the overgrown crossroad and that kept my fears in check to a little extent. In the daylight it looked devoid of secrets, in utter shambles. An ordinary wayfarer might not have even noticed it was there under the abundant foliage.

The porch-steps creaked and I shuddered on remembering the events of the evening before. My heart was hammering against my chest, telling me not to venture inside but my mind despite all the reasons to be afraid, told me otherwise. Physically I might have aged abnormally but my mind remembered well the drive of youthfulness, hopes and aspirations I’d harbored till yesterday. I wanted to fight back.

I pushed open the door and was only greeted by silence, layers of disturbed dust and the water dripping from the leaky roof. Contrary to the pleasant temperature outside, the interiors only radiated cold and malignance. There were old spots and stains on the floor and I didn’t need to be told where the blood of six innocent people was shed. I had seen it up close—I had lived those moments while listening to the old-man’s story.

I combed through the place carefully and in no time found discarded smelly clothes, empty bottles of liquor and small wooden-chest in the room where the woman had died protecting her little girl. Inside was a note scribbled on a piece of paper:

People live and die but their actions remain long after they’re gone. This place is one such ugly consequence. I did what had to be done. I suggest you do the same: tell the story to someone else, someone young. It was the only way to remove this curse I’d carried for ten years. The house will help you do the rest.

PS: you’re running out of time, old-timer!

The creaking porch-steps still haunt my dreams. On rainy nights when my recently-acquired arthritis keeps me awake I think of the house and its resident darkness, of all the nightmares that I see.

I also think of ways to lure people into my trap, my only apparent way out of this. It was pure misery that had unfolded beneath its roof; it was grief, resentment and murder, whose knowledge & first-hand glimpse had aged me.

I am the living proof of the darkness in the old-house—what’s left of it, till I find somebody else to carry the burden.