If These Walls Could Talk

The evening light struggles through the dirty window half-illuminating the dilapidated interior. The front room of the old house sits in a state of abandon. A chair lies by the stairs near the back, the fireplace is black with soot, as is the large, once majestic rug, and only an old oak table stands in seeming defiance to this state of affairs, almost barring entry through the front door, not that many would. The house sits on a hill overlooking the small town laid out before it- as of course all old, abandoned houses must.
The front door swings open and judders back as it meets with the old oak table, prompting a muffled curse from the intruder. The door is once more opened to its full extent, and a man slips through. He has long grey hair tied back in a pony tail, baby blue eyes, slightly wrinkled at the edges, and a quiet smile. He is familiar.
He surveys the room intently, drinking in every tiny detail, noting the differences, the minor, the major and the personal. He caresses the old oak table, smiles knowingly and moves towards the fallen chair, setting it down in the centre of the room and sitting upon it. He rests his head on his hand and watches the door.

  The door opens slowly, and a small child with bright brown eyes stands in the morning light studying the room quizzically. She speaks;
“It doesn’t look very haunted to me,” she perks up “Actually, it’s quite nice,” and without further ado she dances into the room.
“Are you sure?” asks a tremulous voice from outside.
“Yes! Come in!”
A small boy with tousled blonde hair appears in the doorway and his wide, baby blue eyes take in the room for the first time. The rug in the centre of the room, whilst faded maintains some of its original brilliance; the fireplace and the oak table appear massive yet strangely unthreatening in the gentle morning light. An old sedan chair sits in the corner, and some paintings still line the walls, each portraying its own mysterious panorama. The house groans, as if in greeting to this tiny interloper.
“Aaw wow! Andrew, come see!”
Lilly stands on the chair she has dragged to the window looking out in wonder upon the town of their birth, her face pressed against the glass in childlike abandon.
“You can see everything! Look! There’s you’re house!”
“Where?” Andrew cries, climbing up beside her.
“There, look, you can see your big brother out in the garden.”
They both look at each other mischievously and sing out together, “Na na nana na, can’t catch meee!” and jump down to explore further as the peals of their laughter echo sweetly through the house.

There is a great clatter which startles his heart to the very core. He turns, half expecting a beautiful brown eyed young woman to be slipping into the room… but no, it is only the wind rattling the door like the rattle of the last breath in an old man’s chest. The door sticks as he tries to shut it, and he has to exert a great deal of force to close it properly.
He sighs as he looks around the room, “You’ve gotten old my friend.” He laughs, his eyes twinkling, “Then again, so have I.”
  He moves across to the blackened fireplace, and examines carefully the wallpaper directly above him. In places it hangs in tatters, in others it is grotty and disgusting, but if closely examined it is possible to see where a painting once hung. He smiles at the memory of that painting. It was a beautiful old thing, and it was truly unfathomable to him why it had been left, but then again the entire house was a mystery. The painting had offered a glimpse of what appeared to be a tryst between two lovers, although he did, of course, not realise this fully until many years after the first sighting.

The teenager with the baby blue eyes sits in the chair by the window in the afternoon sun, an easel set out before him. He studies the canvas closely, his eyes occasionally flicking up, and back. Apparently satisfied he continues, his brush stroking delicately back and forth across the canvas, his face screwed up in concentration. Lilly watches him from the door. He is so intent on his painting that he has not noticed her. He absently flicks a lock of too long blonde hair from his eyes, leaving a great smear of paint across his face, and she bites her lip so as not to laugh out loud.
She moves silently across the room, avoiding all the spots where the floorboards creek and eventually arrives directly behind him. Slowly, she bends down so she is hovering just over his left shoulder, a wicked grin playing across her face. Eventually he stops, some sixth sense perhaps informing him that something isn’t quite right, and turns… “Jesus Christ!” he jumps up and knocks the chair over backwards.
“That’s my name, don’t wear it out,” she quips, before doubling over in silent laughter on the floor.
“Christ Lilly, that’s not funny, you could’ve killed me; I could’ve had a heart attack!” he says half seriously.
She stops, takes a deep breath and rests her head on her hand, watching him seriously from her place on the old rug.
“Well, if you had happened to drop dead Andrew Coral I think you’re mother would also have died of shame, considering the state you are currently in.”
He sits cross legged on the floor in front of her, “And just what do you mean by that?”
She taps her nose.
He feels his face, and brings his hand away, staring at the paint in a slightly bemused fashion.
She giggles, “Go on, say it.”
He rolls his eyes, “You win.”
She grins, sits up and brings out a handkerchief, leaning forward to wipe away the paint. Their eyes lock. She leans forward slowly, unsure for one of the few times in her life, and for the first time their lips meet, and as they draw back he smiles that quiet, unassuming smile that will soon become his signature for the first time, the smile she will fall in love with.

He kneels under the stairs, his old knees clicking painfully, and touches his hand to the ornately carved heart containing but two words, Lilly and Drew, he has re-discovered there.
He rises heavily, and moves back to the old chair that has served him well so many times before, and sits once more. Once more, he watches the door. He sees a young man with baby blue eyes and untamed blonde hair, he sees a beautiful young woman with sparkling brown eyes and long dark hair, sometimes they are together, sometimes apart. He watches them sadly; soon they appear arm in arm, the young man with his hair tied back and a quiet smile, and they come and go a hundred, a thousand times until they are naught but a blur, an then they come no more and the house is dark and sad.
“I should not have come,” his voice says, startling in the deathly silence and a great pain is shown in those piercing blue eyes.
He rises and moves to the door, opens it and stops. He turns and surveys the room for one last time. He imagines it in its former glory; the beautiful old rug, the window where you could see for miles, the old sedan chair where a couple could lie and play hotly where no one would see, those wonderful old paintings…
“Goodbye old friend…” He turns and slips out the door into the rising darkness, a slight breeze bangs on the door behind him, and then fails, and the house is quiet, and still.