House at Sea

            Due to their incredibly patient natures, houses do not get lonely the way people do, even when left empty for long periods of time. When they live in a city or a neighbourhood with other houses, they always have plenty of company, and when they are on their own, they have plenty of scenery to take in. City houses and country houses do not disagree about who has got the best lifestyle, because they have never met to ponder their differences. Fancy houses do not look down on shacks, because for all they know, the world outside their shiny black gates looks just like what they see around. The one thing that can make a house sad is when it is torn down. They understand it is nothing personal; the owners do not hate them, they just want something fancier, or more minimalist. Regardless, being replaced on the site of their own grave is a hard truth many houses must come to accept, otherwise they start leaking, and have to deal with more plumbers than they care to.

            Houses with waterfront view are a completely different story. Whether it is a pond, lake, river, or ocean, houses along a (clean) body of water know they have it made. One such house sat on a cliff, facing out towards what it assumed was the ocean. Salty air hit its wood siding, and the water stretched beyond the horizon in every direction: this house was confident it had been built by a genius, but in all this miracle worker’s intelligence, they must have forgotten to tell anyone about it, because the house had sat vacant for as long as it could remember. The last people to be within its walls were the painters, adding the final touches to the smallest of its three bedrooms. The house was unsure sure how long ago this took place, but it had to have been at least a few years back. Because the house was built by itself on the cliff, it did not have any other houses around it with whom it could share information about when it could expect any occupants. Or at least the breathtaking view.

            Inside, the house shone. Or, it did when it was first built. Its polished counters, waxed hardwood floors, and pristine walls had gathered unfortunate clumps of dust, and it could swear it heard termites at night, but if any other houses were around, they could have assured him it was nothing. After all, termites are house-transmitted infections (HTI’s), and can only be acquired by living next door to an infected house. So it continued to sit, sunrise after sunrise. It did not consider itself lonely, but it definitely had a lot to consider. Like where the sun went everyday, and why it always rose from the same direction. Because it could not turn around, the house never could see the sun set, nor could it realize that the ground on which it stood was in fact revolving around the sun, not the other way around. It did notice that the light could last longer, or shorter, and the sun’s position in the morning sky shifted back and forth. It was an incredibly slow process, but the house had plenty of time to see these things.

            And just because the house had no house neighbours, that is not to suggest it had absolutely no company. Birds flew by every day, but they had very little to say apart from the occasional chirp or squawk. Whales swam past once in a while, and those were a real treat for the house: they were one of the only times that the house could appreciate breaks in the regular pattern of waves on the water. Whales only took as much space in his view as their bodies could fit, and let out little spurts of water that twinkled in the sunlight. The waves continued to roll as they should. The other occasion where the waves changed was during thunderstorms, and the house did not care much for those. The wind coming in made the rain soak straight into its roof tiles. The waves turned an unnatural, fluffy white, and it made the house nervous to think that clouds were below it and above it at the same time. After the storms ended, the house was made further uneasy by the eerie stillness of the water; the waves almost disappeared entirely one time, and that scared the house. It got the impression that waves rolling kept the sun moving, and to stop one process would stop the other. The house was not afraid of the dark, but it would be sad to see the sun go away permanently. The stars did not shine as brightly as the sun, and it felt like the moon was a fake, pretending to be the sun. It was not even a very good fake, because it would change shapes, and was only ever a perfect circle like the sun every once in a while.

            After the sun had learned all it could from its front, started to feel out its sides and behind a bit. It heard a great deal of rustling coming from behind it, and the first few nights the house was alone, it was terrified a giant boulder was waiting to blast right through it, a casualty in the deranged rock’s desperate flight for the sea. As it spent more time in front of the rustling, it learned it had nothing to fear: a tall tree stood in its front yard, and it made a very similar noise. So, the house decided that many more trees must be standing behind it, all making that noise in harmony.

            But then the house started to feel sad for the tree. Trees were not nearly as complex of creatures as houses were, and so the one in the front yard must not be smart enough to realize it’s so close to its family, yet not with them. Even worse, it could see its brothers sisters standing on the other side of the house, but was powerless to move its heavy trunk over. If there were any houses behind those trees, the house reasoned, it was glad it could not see them. It could not explain why it never cared to see if there were other houses, but it assumed it would only feel jealous they got so many trees, while it was stuck with only one. The trees back there might be bigger, too, and make its own tree feel feeble and weak. The house started to become protective of its tree, and while it could do nothing for the tree, it felt that losing the tree would mean the trees behind it had won, and their rustling would become even louder.

            One day, the house felt a tremour. The sun had only just made its appearance in the sky, but it seemed completely unfazed by the shaking. The house was built on a solid foundation, and was made from high-quality resources, but it heard chaos behind it. Apparently, trees were not made from as sturdy of materials, and from that day on, the rustling from behind the house quieted a bit. The tree in the front yard stayed standing as tall as ever, and the house felt proud of its young friend. The other interesting thing to happen that day was a family of raccoons scampering across its roof. The house had never seen raccoons before, and at first shuddered in fear that they were going to break its windows and start clawing at its carpeting, but instead, they decided to nest in the tree in the front yard. The house remained skeptical of the raccoons, because he hypothesized they must be fat birds that had become too heavy to fly. After some time, the house gradually came to trust the raccoons. They respected the tree in the front yard, and seemed to care for the birds as little as the house did. On a particularly bright evening, it saw a bird perch on one of the topmost branches of the tree, and almost immediately after, leapt back off. One of the raccoons was hissing at it, and the house found the hiss a refreshing sound in comparison to the bird’s usual squawks and screams. After that night, birds became much more wary to land near the house, and the house felt much more peaceful.

            After a very long time, the house began to see changes. Four raccoons climbed into the tree in the front yard on the day of the tremour, but now there were almost a dozen. The tree was much bigger now, and the rustling from behind the house sounded as loud as it did before the chaos of falling. More lights also began to show up during the night, off on the far left of the horizon. At first, the house imagined that stars had fallen into the water, but when it noticed odd-coloured shapes there during the day as well, the house realized that something was built off in the distance. It could only guess at what was there, but for some reason it started to picture other houses. It wondered if they could see the water as well as it could, because they sat along the water, rather than on top of a cliff. The house was proud of its location, but after time, it became more and more curious of what the water looks like from up close.

            Ages passed the house by, and long after the last of the raccoons abandoned the now gigantic tree in the front yard, the house became alarmed: the edge of the cliff seemed somewhat closer than it used to. The house could not explain why the cliff looked this way, but it did, and the house became more nervous than it did during the thunderstorms that crashed gigantic lightning bolts onto the water’s surface. Its wood felt weaker these days, and the house worried that the contractor that had planned it did not take into account the house staying up for a very long time. No one had ever lived in the house to decide it was time for a new coat of paint or that its porch needed replacing, and so the house felt worn down. It could not see itself, but it imagined a tired scene. The rustling was closer lately, and the house became afraid the trees from behind would consume the house whole. It would be happy to see the tree in the front yard be united with its great-great-grand nieces and nephews, but it did not want to sacrifice itself first. The house convinced itself that it had been too passive its whole life, and if these trends of trees growing forwards and the cliff moving backwards, it would do something about it.

            More time passed, and slowly the house saw its fears realized. More animals emerged from the trees behind, and the house felt mocked by these new creatures. They had legs, and could move around as they chose. The tree in the front yard was as immobile as the house, and as the edge inched ever closer, the house worried that it would spend its final days alone. The tree in the front yard was a simple creature, so it would fall off the cliff without much protest. The house, though, would see its own demise, and experienced a new feeling. For the first time, it felt lonely. The trees behind would have each other for company, and the birds would find new places to roost. If only it could be like the whales and the raccoons, the house could walk or swim over to those buildings in the distance.

            As the tree in the front yard teetered on the brink of the cliff that was now at its roots, the house had an idea. Its joints felt weak, and its foundation felt cracked, but it had had the chance to observe the animals that emerged from the trees behind it a great deal. While not as skilled as humans, the house realized that they made use of the resources around them: fallen branches from the tree in the front yard were fodder for nests and places to sleep, its trunk was a climbing place and a quick escape route from predators in either direction, and its shade kept them cool during the hot days. If the house could become more like the tree in the front yard, then maybe the animals could use its resources as well. The house decided its doors had stayed shut for too long, and realized that through the course of its entire life, it had not contributed a thing to its neighbours on the cliff.

            The house had a tearful parting with the tree in the front yard one day, when the sun was high in the sky and almost out of view. With a final rustle, and a groan louder than it had ever heard, even on the day of the tremour, the tree in the front yard became the tree that fell off the cliff. The house was alone, and so it decided to put its plan into action.

            All it had been good at was standing up, but for the first time since being erected, the house tried to stop standing. Its baseboards started squealing as wood bent and snapped, but when it tried to pull back up in shock, the damage had been done. The house felt its walls start to slant, its roof began to cave in, and its windows shattered, but before it fell into a heap of scraps, its walls curved a bit, making the house face to its left, where it noticed more oddly-coloured shapes on the horizon that looked just like houses staring back.

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