The Old Woman in the Cellar

A Story by NOSGALA

Short Story

"Do you think they're still down there?" she thought to herself. "Perhaps. In fact, why not?" It had been a couple of weeks since she started her new-found activity and ever since she had been thinking about it. It gave her a renewed sense of life, it was new, unknown and daring.

At the age of 82 there aren't many things that will excite a person. As babies everything we see is baptised in the light of the new, yielding wonder in our eyes. Life seems like a promise of experiences waiting to be opened. As the years progress so does the familiar expand. The new no longer comes at the same frequency. Heck! Most elderly people become so accustomed to living in banality that they resign the game of life and simply wait for time to tick away.

"Not me!", she thought. "Not me!"

She was currently in the kitchen. A low-key buzz was audible at all times, even to her. "That's good, the fridge is working." That was all that mattered. The derelict nature of the kitchen did not bother her at all. If visitors came - something that had not happened for years now - they would certainly remain speechless at the sight of the kitchen: stained floor tiles, spider webs, unidentified/ questionable crumbs here and there, the occasional cockroach, the works! Indeed it would certainly be something NEW to them.

Her eyes rolled to each side as she thought, "I don't think anyone will look for me if I go down there. The milkman has already done his rounds, the postman knows that he shouldn't bother me and just put everything in the box, Emma has dropped the groceries... Emma... Ah Emma, such a kind little girl, helping an old woman like me. If it weren't for her I'd probably starve in this house. Such a sweetheart!...Why would she be so good?... That fat b***h probably wants to inherit me. You'll have to wait a long time for that to happen my dear!.. Or maybe I'm missing something? Perhaps I should watch the food she's bringing. After all, Johnny did die a year after marrying her. My poor Johnny!"

Standing there in the middle of the room she looked like a small hunchback witch. She wore a brown overcoat that was like second skin to her. People of fashion would say that this dusty, shredded piece of tatters was a perfect choice of clothing to match the surroundings. Her curly white hair was tucked under a fishnet bonnet. Below, the wrinkled waves of her forehead sat above her aquiline nose and the narrow slits of her eyes. As she toyed with the temptation, her tongue slowly snaked out of a set of sealed lips, barely revealing itself. It took only a couple of seconds before she had resolved to go down there...

She slowly made her way to the corner of the kitchen and grabbed the broomstick. This was no ordinary broomstick - oh no - this was her act of Macgyverism. She had screwed a small metal hoop on the stick's curved edge and then passed a series of fishing leads through that hole. With some imagination the broomstick now looked like an anorexic rastafarian. She grabbed it and made her way down the dark cellar.

13 steps down - just 13 steps were enough to separate two worlds. Apart from certain crumbs of concrete here and there, the room was an empty grey square, dimly lit under a hanging gas lamp. The only piece of furniture was a wooden chair of the type one would expect to find in a monastery of some highly ascetic sect. Directly in front of the chair was a hole, half a meter in diameter, glowing as the light caressed the liquid inside. It was an open sewage pipe.

She sat on the chair, propped the broomstick in between her legs, and dipped the rastafarian's hair into the liquid. She knew that outside it would soon be getting dark and that the hooks would soon begin to bite. She got lost in her thoughts and let time tick away.

Surprisingly it wasn't long before she felt a tug. With a snap of the wrist she first secured her catch and then slowly lifted it out of the cess-hole. It was heavy. Slowly two long fangs started to emerge, followed by two gleaming eyes of violence. The expression was clearly rabid. Then came the body, twitching and snapping across its backbone as it resisted the hold. Finally that long never-ending tail emerged. A pink ribbed worm of gigantic proportion. The creature was huge! She felt proud of this one and toyed with the idea of taking a photo and framing it over her fireplace the way real fishermen do. Below the frame she would engrave "0.7 kg 09/10/2010".

She watched as the twitching and struggling gradually became weaker. Eventually the catch stopped moving and its eyes folded to a stoned stance. This was the moment she enjoyed the most. Her eyes matched those of the dead animal as she raved in the feeling of power. She was a god over vermin.