I couldn’t remember a time before the neighborhood. It was a mishmash of different building styles and colors. Some of the houses had high triangular roofs while others seemed to favor a sphere style. There was no color scheme to speak of but it did seem that each section of the city followed its own palette.
My house was bright orange with windows that looked like they were melting. Their purple frames curving like a snake does when its trying to escape. Mine was the only one at the end of the street, it faced out towards the other houses like a silent observer. If only my house could talk. Maybe it could tell me what was happening to the place I’d called home for so long.
Ms. Lottie’s place used to be filled with different types of flowers. They spilled out of her yard onto the pavement but no one complained. Her house had filled the neighborhood with the strange perfumes of exotic plants. Ivy climbed her house like a mischievous child and her sunflowers grew as tall as the first floor of her house.
Then Lesco came.
I remember looking out my window as I brushed my teeth and I saw him on the sidewalk outside Ms. Lottie’s house. I’d mumbled to myself at how much nerve this stranger had as he was standing directly on the flowers that had decorated the pavement, slowly choking the life out of them with his weight. He looked as if he was making a decision before striding up to Ms. Lottie’s door, trampling her flowers as he went. I winced at every step he took, watching the petals get torn off with each footstep.
I couldn’t have imagined that Ms. Lottie would have opened her door to him, but she did.
She’d opened the door looking offended and angry. Surveying the damage he’d done, but then Lesco had put a hand on her shoulder and she calmed. She invited him in.
She never let anyone in.
The next week she was gone. She’d moved to the camp. Now her house sat vacant, the ivy clinging desperately to its white walls as its leaves shriveled and turned. The sunflowers dropped further and further until they were half their size. The flowers that Lesco had tramped became a disease in the garden. Their poison slowly seeping outward until only the flowers on the perimeter clung to their beauty.
I stood on my porch looking at Ms. Lottie’s house.
That’s when I noticed the moving van that had slowly crept in front of The Boy’s house.
They were leaving.
Based