The house.

The house was broken. In spirit, in structure. No one lived there.It stood, tall and decomposed and dead, on the side of the flashy new urban residence painted in the brightest of pastels.


The terrace was of a dying black, with a stain of parasitic moss that had spread like a pool of water. The vines hung like poisonous snakes. Untamed bushes grew from the broken corners, the leaves looked treacherous. The plaster had peeled off- crusty flakes creaked open from the walls-like a man whose face dripped with pustules of ugly, squeamish pus. A brick blushed red and healthy somewhere, it seemed like a valiant attempt to be a part of the present time. The window had no curtains, except the straggly strands of decayed ivy. Dying and an infected yellowish green. The grills were probably painted white, but over the years, the dust licked the white to a salty grey. The house had the halo of the haunted, as if a peek into windows would reveal the palette's of the yesteryear's. Maybe an old man, with his crop of hoary hair, and a face flushed with flesh, tucked into the corner. A shiny box of steel with the assortment of paan and other breath mint by the side of his mat. Or maybe a young bride, smothered with gold and wrapped in a fiery red, the bangles chiming the sweetest tinkle as she fluffs the bed for her old husband. Maybe girls with long pleated cotton frocks and neatly braided hair. Maybe a boy with socks pulled up to his knees, his hair oiled with jasmine and parted strictly to the sides. An earthen pot, a steel tumbler. Maybe, Maybe.


I can only wonder. I will never know the story of the house on the street.