The Little Yellow House

No one knows the history of the house better than the house itself.

First there was a family. They were happy and they loved each other. The son would ask his father to go to the park and the answer was always yes. The mother baked in the kitchen and made the world's most magnificent smelling brownies for her husband and child. The family painted the living room white to cover up an ugly shade of orange. They lived in the small yellow house for three years, until they had a baby girl and moved away.

Next there was an old woman and her dog, Champ. The old woman was hard of hearing and yelled a lot. The neighbors complained and came to the door to tell her to stop, but that would make her yell more. She didn't mean to sound angry, she would tell Champ. She just couldn't understand why her new neighbors spoke so softly to her. The old woman never moved, but her dog did and so did her belongings after a year.

A man called Walter came next. He was a professor at the community college downtown and had a masters degree in theology, which he hung proudly in the den. He had a habit of drinking at night though and spilling his bottles on the floor. Smelly liquid stained the rugs and the rest of the floor and it made it hard for him to have visitors anymore. He moved away when he was fired for drinking at work.

Melanie and Tom were expecting a child, whom they would call Sarah. They loved the small yellow house and Melanie redecorated it to make it their own. The stained rugs with the rocking chair prints and the white painted walls went away, and in came a heavy theme of blue. Tom liked cars, and he had a make-shift shop in the garage. When Sarah was born, the couple came home to find a robbery, Tom being shot after protecting his family. Melanie and Sarah moved away to go live with her mother.

When your life lasted for only seventeen years, you tend to become involved and in love with others. You would love the smell of brownies and how Champ barked at the door and Walter's slurred words and the newborn baby with a newly painted pink bedroom. I lived in a bigger gray house with red shutters and a white door. I was unhappy in the house and decided to make it so I could never be in the house again. Little did I know that  dad would burn the bigger gray house and the city would build a little yellow one over it. So I guess I did get out of it, but I did remain hanging in the stairway from the balcony.