Writings / Fiction: Collette Burjack

But you were too late. They began to visit me during the day as well: I would hear their gasps of breath, their light footfalls around the room while I worked. I started talking to them, although I wasn’t sure if I was talking to them or to the house, or if there was any difference. Nothing of consequence: I would tell stories about when you and I first met, or about the plans we’d made for our lives. I told these stories and I painted. After months of your cold silence it was a relief just to talk again.

But here’s the thing, John, the house grew tired of its confinement. It wanted more than just one room: it wanted it all.

I tried to resist. I knew you weren’t ready. But the house was insistent, a constant ache inside of me. And then you went away. A conference: no more than a weekend. I wanted to go with you, but you refused. You packed your suitcase grimly, methodically folding your faded shirts and pants, rejecting my touch.

The door slammed closed behind you.

“Now,” the house whispered. “Now.”

I listened. I walked up the stairs and opened the door to the second bedroom. Immediately I felt a surging forth.

“Now,” the house screamed. “Now.”

So I went to work. I painted everything: the barren walls, the cold tiles, even the ceiling. I didn’t think, and I didn’t stop. I added colour everywhere, splashes of red and orange, brilliant deep hues flickering over the sterile landscape. I was covered in paint, too, with scarlet streaks on my arms and face and flecks of paint in my hair.

I painted all day and through the night. I worked through my exhaustion, painting even when my hands started to shake and my vision blurred. I gave myself up to the house.

“Here!” I surrendered. “Take it. It’s all yours.”

The house drank it in, satisfied at last. And I heard their feet louder than ever pattering through the hallways, their squeals of laughter, the clatter of toys. Spent, I lay down on the floor in the living room surrounded by a deluge of colour and listened.

When you walked through the door I watched you shatter. For a moment you stood frozen, the keys still in your hand, surveying your desecrated prison. Then all that rigid self-control you had maintained over the last twelve months abruptly thawed and you were frantically trying to erase my work. You didn’t bother with a bucket, splashing the cleaning solution directly onto the walls and then scouring it with rags. When that failed you tried bleach, and finally in desperation you started scratching at the paint with your nails, your blood mingling with all the shades of red.

I was screaming and trying to pull you away, but you wrenched yourself from my grasp as though my touch was repulsive. Even though your nails were peeling away from your fingers as you clawed at the walls, you would have kept going if you hadn’t heard the voices coming from upstairs. They were quiet, barely murmurs, but they cut through the room like jagged glass. The house was calling you, as it had called me. You struggled up the stairs, not caring that you were leaving bloody prints on the handrails, until you stood before the door of the second bedroom.

“Now,” the house demanded. “Now.”

Ever so slowly you turned the handle and swung open the door. All my drawings stood exposed. You walked into the centre of the room and turned around in a circle, engulfed by my paintings. And for the first time you really saw me.

“Why are you here?” you asked in a whisper that was a scream. “Why did you come?”

“John,” I begged. “Please. Don’t block me out.”

“Are you punishing me?” Your voice caught.

“No, John,” I tried to explain. “I’m just trying to survive.”

But you just stood there looking at your hands covered in blood and paint, surrounded by the dizzying mural of our lives reaching out to the past and to the future. Somehow I had hoped that when you finally saw my art you would look–really look, John. Then you would see that I had given life to everything we’d talked about when we still believed in our dreams.  But I knew now that for you all of this–these pictures, even me–it could never be anything but constant reminders of the life you would never have.

I understood you, John. But I can’t forgive what you tried to do next. With the same terrible calm that you had the day you tore up the photo, you tried to light the house on fire.

You weren’t there that day, John. It was terrible for you, I know, coming home to flashing lights and smoldering rubble. Faulty wiring, they said, not your fault. There’s nothing you could have done, and they were right. And I know all you want to do is block everything out, but I was there, John, and I can’t stop remembering. I was there when the smoke grew so heavy I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t find my way to her; I was there when I smelled my flesh start to burn and felt him move inside me. I was there when I died.

I see it all the time. I can’t stop painting the flames.

So I can’t forgive the fact that you took your lighter from your pocket and held it to the curtains. Did you think that if you burned as well all your memories and pain would die with you?

You would have gone through with it, too, even though I begged you to stop. But then you saw them. I know you did. Standing next to me: the little girl in a red jacket and the young boy, staring back at you with your own brown eyes. The house had given them back to us, John.

I guess when you didn’t show up for work several days in a row someone must have called the police. When they broke into the house they found you crouched in the corner of the second bedroom, still clawing feebly at its blank walls.

But you should be happy now, John. You’ve got what you wanted: you’re surrounded by white walls and white floors and everything is regulated and controlled. And I’ve got the house. We’re happy there, the children and me, although we wish you could have stayed. But I’ll keep visiting you, John. I’m not ever going away.

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