Feb 21, 2013 Original Short Stories

Patience is a House –A Short, Short, Short Story©By Vijaya Sundaram
(With a Tip of the Hat to Walter De La Mare)
February 19th, 2013

The house stood still.

There was someone about — someone who did not belong, someone who posed a threat.

The house leaned in, closer, the better to listen and absorb.

It heard the foodfalls, softer than feathers floating down.  It heard the held breath, the pulse in abeyance, the mind that fenced itself in against the night.

The house shuddered.  It felt grim.  It had to do what it had to do.

The footfalls entered the bedroom where the dead had lain for a century.  Now, there was nothing but dust and the vague shape of a human outlined in moonlight.

The footfalls paused, and breath whistled out in a cloud of shock.  The footfalls seemed to consider what to do.

The house tensed itself, ready to protect and serve the dead, to prevent the world from knowing what lay within it, and why it was there.

The footfalls turned around, went to the window.  The pulse in abeyance was now hammering loudly, and the house could hear it.  The footfalls pressed down.  The moonlight streamed in, and the forest all around the house moved like a glacier, indistinguishable from the passing shadows under the moon.

The house started to close in.  And then, it paused.

There was a spring, a whoosh of air, and a dull thud.  The footfalls gathered themselves up, and clattered over the bone-white, bleached cobblestones, putting distance between themselves and the house.  The forest pressed back, afraid.  The echoes that remained seemed forlorn.  The footfalls died away into the distance.

The house sighed.  So close, so close.  Now, it had to wait again.  Another hundred years would pass.  It didn’t matter.  The house was patient.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The End~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tags: #Original Short Story, ghost story, mystery