My house knows when I’m coming.
From streets away, the bricks get this sixth sense. She calls it her “burglar alarm.” My house rustles and picks. Gets bored when I’m gone. She likes to dig, pluck. In the afternoon she waits, back bent over the grating until I get back from school. I like returning to her walls, her perfect bricks, cupped in a wychert coat. If there was an earthquake, I’m pretty sure my house would be the last one to fall. She has immovable foundations. She’s popular. Everybody in the High Street knows my house on a first name basis. Her doorbell is constantly ringing. In fact, even my decaying neighbours spend potentially their last hours on earth talking to my house. My house is often found in conversation with herself, especially when she’s out picking weeds by the front door.
“Hi Mum,” I say, placing a hand on one of her shoulders.
“Hey Scooby. How was school?” she says back to me, my house, my home. I didn’t mean what I said earlier. Turns out, I’ve gotten really good at playing two truths and one lie.
Anyway—Mum’s as human as you can be in a village full of sixty people, where the only pub in a ten-mile radius is named the Flemish Weaver. Get me a bucket.
