The House (standard:fantasy, 944 words)
Author: Topali	Added: Jun 06 2003	Views/Reads: 3132/1	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
This story is about the way some things and places seem to have a memory and a will of their own.

The House 

The house had looked out over the same valley for nearly three
centuries. Halfway up the highest peak, standing in a large clearing in 
the pine forest, it commanded all the lower terrain. The fields, the 
densely overgrown foothills, the narrow creek that cut through the 
valley-floor; this was the world the house had always known. Much had 
changed in this world. When it was built, the house had shared the 
valley with a few homesteads, dotted along the course of the creek. The 
house had been proud then, the only stone structure in the valley. But 
as the house grew of age, the valley changed. Many houses were built 
and more men lived in them. A church steeple made of red bricks rose 
above what was now a town, criss-crossed by earthen roads and 
cartpaths. And still more men came. The house too, was filled with ever 
more life. Men were born, spent their lives in its spacious rooms and 
found their resting-place in the shadow of its peaked roof. Some men 
were good, others were not. But always the house looked on, the grime 
of many years silently accumulating. After three hundred years of 
watching the world of men replace the original life of the valley, the 
house was old. Its timbers were rotten to the core and broken windows 
had not been refitted for many years. It would not be long before it 
too went the way of the generations it had provided with comfort and 
shelter. The house did not mind; it was tired. 

Then new men came to the valley. They were soldiers, but different from
the countless soldiers the house had seen pass by. They had always been 
scared and anxious to go home. The new soldiers were different. They 
smiled evil smiles and stayed in the valley. And they took over the 
house. It was sorry to see the last descendent of its family go; he was 
a good man, but he could not stand up to the smiling soldiers. Soon 
more of the men came and they changed the house. Rotten wood was 
replaced by concrete beams, priceless paintings replaced the crumbling 
sideboards and mouldy paper on its walls. When it was finished, the 
house was larger and more luxurious than it had ever been. Many other 
things changed as well. Now, when men came to the house, they were 
excited or scared. And smoke always filled the horizon, smoke from 
fires burning in far-off places. A man had taken possession of the 
house, a special man. The house had seen many men come and go, some 
strong, some weak, but none like this one. His presence filled the 
house and lay like a blanket over the entire valley and beyond. The 
other men with the evil smiles feared him, and tried to please him. The 
house did not like this man. He was like the slow corruption that had 
spread through its timbers for two hundred years, living off the life 
and strength of others and leaving only decay. Where once the house had 
heard the laughter and tears of people living their lives, there was 
now something much darker. Fear lay around the house and filled its 
halls. 

The house became old beyond its days, and corrupted by the atrocities
the man and others committed within its walls. Others came from distant 
lands to pay respect to the man, their hearts filled with fear. And 
never did they find comfort in the house, whose hearth had once warmed 
the hands and faces of loving families. It no longer looked like a 
home; it no longer was a home. It had become terror to all that knew 
it. Then servants of the man dug up the roots of the house and poured 
more concrete into the gaping hole they left. The last foothold of the 
original house vanished forever, along with the bones of the man who 
had once built it. For the first and the last time in the life of the 
house, it let out a sob that was heard in every room and in every 
basement; and a sickness spread throughout. Slowly something withered 
and died in the heart of the house. Behind its decorated walls, through 
its hardened concrete pillars first small fractures crept, then larger 
and larger cracks. None of the men noticed. Day after day the house 
crumbled, until only the outer walls and the roof remained untouched. 
Still, the men did not notice. Then, one day, many men came to worship 
the one who now lived in the house. With them came the smell of more 
fear, the fear of a faraway people about to be trampled by iron-shod 
boots and evil smiles. Their footsteps ringing through the halls sent a 
tangible shiver throughout the house, widening every crack. Now 
suddenly, the dilapidation around them was revealed to the men, and 
they were afraid. But it was too late. With a sigh that was not quite 
soundless, the house collapsed. And of that place, that had seen the 
world pass by for many lives of man, nothing remained but rubble and 
silence. All the evil men were gone too, bringing many changes to the 
valley once again. But the house was no longer there to see it. All 
that remained was the clearing and the valley, as empty as they had 
been when the house was first built. 

Human voices were no longer heard in the clearing. And for many, many
years, it never rained on that spot and no plants grew. For such is the 
way of things and places that have seen too much. 


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