Morning all. The coffee is brewing, the sun is shining for the first time in a while, so lets jump into the morning prompt while the world dries out a bit. Timers at the ready and off we go.
Not what I was expecting, but I think I actually have a story I can use this in. So woot! I love it when that happens.
Wednesday, June 4th: The lawn was overgrown.
The lawn was overgrown. It was dense and thick and reminded me of a shag carpet that had grown feelers in places. I remembered the shag carpet of my childhood bedroom and shivered wondering what sort of things lived in its undergrowth. I shook off the thought. The shag carpet had been removed from my bedroom well before I reached high school. It was a hold over from an earlier time and removed as soon after we moved in. Still the memory of losing things to it’s depths was one etched in the back of my mind.
I let my eyes trace over the lawn as I followed the real estate agent up the drive.
“…a bit of TLC,” she said as we reached the door. I blinked and wasn’t certain if she was talking about the lawn or the house. In truth it could have been both. While the lawn had grown lush and thick, flourishing without anyone to tamp it down, the same could not be said for the house. It was not enjoying it’s moment of freedom from it’s human compatriots. It looked a bit sad and forlorn.
As I felt the same way I had a bit of sympathy with it.
I tried to tamp the feeling of solidarity down to look objectively at the house in front of me. Once inside the house exhaled a stale breath that smelled of dust and disuse. The paint was faded and the rectangles where prints once lived shown in brighter spots.
The carpet too had indentations and less faded spots. I could practically see the furniture arrangements of inhabitants past. My guess was who ever lived in this house moved in, put their furniture in place and never moved the furniture again. The living room gave way to the eat in kitchen. The floor was some sort of slate gray stone look tile. The space for a kitchen table was empty. The kitchen had a lot of cabinets but no appliances. The spaces where they should have been gaped like missing teeth.
The kitchen was not new or high end, but it looked serviceable and set up for actual cooking instead of reheating. It wasn’t a chef’s dream by any stretch of the imagination, but it had spaces arranged in logical places and the cabinets looked sturdy.
‘Wiped out and shelf paper added should be fine,’ I thought. I didn’t need high end. The real estate agent hurried me through the kitchen as though embarrassed that it wasn’t a top of the line model. I decided to keep my opinion to myself.
The bedrooms weren’t large but they weren’t tiny either. Since I generally only used the bedroom at night, most of which I at least tried to be asleep for, I didn’t mind the smaller master suite. It had a bathroom attached and that was all I needed. While I aimed for a full night sleep often a middle of the night bathroom break got me out of bed. Having a commode close meant I didn’t have to trek down the all in the dark. The shorter the distance from bed to bath, the less likely I was to trip on something I forgot about.
I suppose the larger bedrooms are more important for those with kids, a restful retreat from them. As I didn’t have any, I needed a bed to sleep and one bedroom to turn into an office. There were three bedrooms in this house so I even had a spare. I somehow suspected if I ended up buying the house it would be where all my unopened boxes lived until I finally got around to unpacking them.
Ten til Midnight 