donderdag 14 april 2011

The house at the end of the street 1/2


Bounce! The bright red ball bounces up again. From Tommy to Anna. Anna catches it and bounces it on to Robert. Robert completes the circle in bouncing it towards Tommy again. Because the tiles on the street are not level, the ball always bounces in an unexpected direction. That makes it harder for them to catch the ball, and the game more interesting; you never know where the ball is going, and the object of the game is for the other not to be able to catch the ball in once. They play this game every day after school, even in the winter. But now it is almost summer, only two weeks until summer holiday. That is always an amazing time. Because then they can play this game all day. And not only in their street, but also at the big lake just outside of town.

Tommy bounces the ball again. Right after his head almost automatically turns to the end of the street. Or more specifically to the house at the end of the street. On both sides of the street there are big houses, paired in two’s. Tommy and Robert live next to each other in one of the pairs, Anna lives across, one pair further. All spacious houses, with three floors and a nice garden in front of it. Hidden from sight by the houses are the backyards, which are very large. Most of them have swimming pools or tennis courts in them. In short, a very nice neighborhood. Except for the house at the end of the street. It is part of a pair, and doesn’t look like the other ones at all. And there is no house at the other side of the street to match it. It is as if the house was placed there randomly. Many of the residents complained about the house. It seemed uninhabited for years now, and nothing had been done to preserve it. Some of the residents complained at city hall, but apparently they couldn’t do anything, because somehow all taxes were paid for on time.

That, however, did not interest Tommy at all. He was drawn to the house time and time again by the mystery. The house breathed excitement and adventured, and it smelled of the unknown. But he never went close, and nor did Robert and Anna. Their parents had strictly forbidden them to go anywhere near the house. They warned them that the house was haunted. There was the story of a young boy who had supposedly vanished into the house. In the end, when the police gave up their search, the poor family moved away. Their house, at the other end of the street, had been empty for over a year to remind them all of the tragedy that had occurred. Because Tommy was looking at the house all the time, he moved a small step closer to it every time he bounced the ball. The others, also unaware, followed him. So after a few games, with mostly Robert as the winner because he was very good at it, they were actually playing in front of the last paired houses of the street. Tommy heard something. Quickly he turned, realizing it was the ball that Robert threw at him. But he was too late, so he couldn’t catch the ball. He was out of this round. While Robert and Anna started their battle for this game, Tommy stared at the house.

The house was surrounded by a high fence. Once, long ago, it must have been shining metal, but now it was only orangey rust. The bars were about two meters high. Just above the bottom, at the middle and just below the top they were crossed by smaller horizontal bars. Every two meters was a big bar that had an ornament on top of it. The bars in between had spear like spikes on top. They still looked very sharp, despite the rust. In the middle of the fence there was the gate. It had all kinds of ornaments in it instead of bars. Tommy couldn’t decide what they represented. One time they looked like waves, the other time like faces, their appearance would change every time. Behind the fence was a garden. Well, maybe jungle was a better description. High thorn bushes fought each other for space, and you couldn’t see more than a few meters into the thickness of it. The front door you could see though, because the path to it wasn’t completely overgrown yet. The front door had three marble steps in front of it, and the door itself was a big wooden double one. It was half open, and squeaking because of the wind. Above the bushes you could see the upper floors. The all had big windows, the glass broken in most of them. Shards of curtains were flapping through the openings, giving the house a sinister sight.

            “I’ve won! Again! I’m the king of this street!”
The shrieks of Robert ecstatic crying brought Tommy back to reality enough to see the red ball bouncing up very high, over the head of little Anna. He also noticed that the ball was heading straight for the haunted house. Robert and Anna noticed too.
            “Oh no, my ball! It was a present from my grandmother.”
Anna was about to cry. It must have happened in only a few seconds, but to Tommy, Robert and Anna it seemed like forever. In slow-motion the ball made a perfect arc towards the fence. They all fear that the ball will hit the spikes, but through a miracle it lands exactly in between two of them. The ball bounces straight up, and is taken from their sight temporarily by the springtime sun that is high up in the sky. When it comes back down, it again bounces on the fence. And again right in between two spikes. But unfortunately for the three, the ball gets launched into the garden instead of back to the streets. They hear it hitting some bushes, and then it is gone.
“What do we do now? I don’t want to go in there, it’s scary.”
Robert huffed and replied:
            “You are a typical girl, you are afraid.”
But when Anna dared him to enter the house himself then, he didn’t move either. Tommy completed their still life. They look at each other. All afraid to admit to the other that they are scared, but knowing it of each other anyway. Finally, Tommy breaks the silence.
“I think there’s a hole in the fence of the back yard. There are no metal bars there, only chicken wire. Maybe we could go in from there to get the ball back?”
They think of it a bit, and when the boys see Anna’s sad face, they decide to at least check it out. So together they walk around the house, follow the fence until the sidewalk stops. They continue over the grass and through some low bushes, keeping one hand on the chicken wire at all times. Finally, when Tommy starts to think he was wrong, they find the hole. It’s a small hole, but big enough for cats and dogs.

With a little squirming the kids get inside the fence. They have to stand very close to each other, because the bushes are very dense here. They only see one direction to go so they go there. Robert leads. He is the biggest and strongest of the three. Anna is in the middle, Tommy at the back. They seem to be following some sort of path.
            “I see light in front of us; maybe we’re at the house already.”
Robert picks up the pace, Anna and Tommy follow. Now they all see the light. Some beams of sunlight hit their eyes. Suddenly Robert stops and screams. Anna bumps into him, Tommy into Anna. With a scared look on his face Robert looks around and pushes them back.
            “There is someone there. Someone horrible and scary and ugly!”
They all stand very still. But they hear nothing. After some time Anna whispers:
            “Do you think it is safe now? Maybe he was scared of us too?”
Tommy takes the lead, and slowly moves forward. The others stay behind and wait. He disappears into the sunlight. For a moment they hear nothing. Then suddenly Tommy bursts out in laughter.
            “Come over here, it’s only a statue. There is nothing to be afraid of.”
The others follow hesitantly, but soon they also see what Robert was so afraid of. In a little clearing in the bushes is a statue of a man. But not an ordinary man. Instead of feet he has hooves, and a stone tail curls from behind him. His eyes look like they’re on fire, and two little horns emerge from the top of his rock hair. Now that they see it in daylight, it doesn’t look so scary. Except for the eyes. They really look like they’re on fire, even though they are carved and lifeless. Quickly the group moves on. The small path leads them further into the wilderness. This time Tommy leads, with a moaning Robert at the back. But it isn’t for long that Tommy is also scared by another statue in a little clearing. This time not a man, but an animal. Robert laughs.
            “You’re just as scared as I am Tommy.”
The animal looks like a wolf. It is carved in an attacking position. So no wonder Tommy was scared when he entered the clearing. The wolf like creature is on its hind legs, with his fore legs facing towards anyone coming from the small path. But what is the scariest, is the face of the creature. It has big and sharp teeth, and eyes that show no mercy. It looks very lifelike. The tongue seems to move inside its mouth. Without delay the group continues its journey, but now they take a lot of care when they reach a clearing. After a group of fierce dwarves and a skeleton like man they suddenly can’t go any further. They have reached the side wall of the house. 

The house at the end of the street 2/2


With their backs against the wall the three young adventurers moved on. Step by step they came closer to the corner of the big old house. Finally they arrived there. Around the corner however the situation wasn’t better. Still the bushes grew all the way up to the wall, so they couldn’t move very fast here either. Bit by bit they got to the door, on their way passing a big window that was boarded up. Robert tried to break the board. But that didn’t work, despite the fact that it looked very old. After a while they got to the front door. Looking to the right they could still see the street behind the gate. It looked like another world to them. The ball should have landed here somewhere. So they looked around for it. But the ball was nowhere to be seen. Not near the door, not on the path to the street, not in the bushes besides the street. Disappointed, Anna sat down on a stone flower pot that had fallen over. She looked at the boys.
            “I think it’s no use. We can never find the ba…”
Mid sentence she stopped, and looked past the two boys in surprise. Curious as to what she saw, Tommy and Robert turned around. There, in the shadow of the door, on the floor, they saw it too. A small round object, dark from the shadow of the door, that could have been red in the right light. The boys followed Anna, who had eagerly passed them. When she came near the door, the ball seemed to roll away. Anna pushed the door wide open. She welcomed the help from Robert and Tommy; it was a heavy door. It squeaked a lot and then came to a stop against the wall with a big bang. Anna and the boys looked inside. They didn’t see the ball there. Carefully they walked in. Through the hallway, and into the wide lobby. Everything in there was covered in thick layers of dust. A wooden chair, a side table, a pair of slippers, the umbrella stand. The umbrella stand had an umbrella in it, but it was half eaten by moths. A gust of wind came in through the front door, and it shook the crystal chandelier that was hanging in the middle of the lobby. Dust fell down and on their heads. It made them look down and see a track. A track that could well have been formed by a ball. A red ball even. It went – not in a straight line – towards the stairs. The stairs were something spectacular. Even in the dim light they looked astonishing. Wide marble steps were surrounded by very beautiful guardrails, carved out of fine oak wood. The railings seemed to be covered in pure gold. On both sides of the lobby there were stairs. Somehow the track of the ball went up one of the stairs. After only a few moments of hesitation, the children followed it up the stairs, the one to the right. It took them some effort, because the steps were quite high.

The stairs took them higher and higher. Higher than they would have expected actually. Finally they saw the end. Relieved they took the last steps and ended up… exactly where they had begun. They were in the lobby again, but now on the left side. They saw their footprints in the dust, leading towards the staircase on the right.
            “But that is impossible! We only went up…”
Tommy looked outside to confirm that they were actually still at ground level. And they were. With a puzzled look on their faces they found each others eyes. Without having to tell each other they simultaneously started walking to the left stairs. Again it took them a long time, but in the end… they were back where they had come from, but now of course on the right. Unbelievable.
            “What is going on here?”
Anna asked a bit scared.
“I have an idea. Robert, you go up at that side, and then I go up here. Let’s see if we meet each other halfway.”
And so it was done. Robert went up on the left, Tommy on the right. Anna stayed downstairs in the lobby, waiting. After a while she heard voices talking far above her. She couldn’t hear them clearly enough, but she thought she recognized her friends. Not too much later she heard someone running down the stairs. Or better, two someones. It wasn’t long before Tommy arrived on the left, and Robert showed up at the right. It turned out they had met in the middle, and proposed to keep following their route to see where that would lead them.

Since there was apparently no way to get up a floor, they decided to explore the ground floor. Close together the two boys and the girl entered one of the doors that came out into the lobby. They took the one most to the right. It was a large room which must have once be brightly lit by all the big windows, but now it was rather dark. All over the wall were books in impressive old book cases. In the middle of the room stood a lonely leather chair. It was accompanied by a big globe. It was opened at the equator, and in its mouthlike shape the children could see empty glass bottles. A candle had melted all over the candlestick that was placed in the middle of a small round table. It had some red blotches on it. They found nothing interesting so they moved on. The only other door in the room led to a long corridor. The corridor seemed very high. It looked like it followed the corners of the house. At every corner, the children felt that it was lower. Suddenly Tommy noticed
“Hey, we have had four corners now, which means that we should have been back at the lobby by now.”
That was true. But they weren’t. All that was there was the endless and lowering corridor, with pictures of old people at the wall that would get only larger. They walked on, and rounded another corner. Again the corridor continued and the ceiling became lower. A grown man would have had to tilt his head a bit by now. Confused the children went forth. The corridors just didn’t seem to end, and at every corner they became lower, the paintings becoming bigger. At one point the paintings were too big for the corridors, so the old people started missing heads. Robert, Tommy and Anna got tired. But still the corridors weren’t at an end. By now they had to tilt their head a bit. And it only got worse.
            “Hey guys, do you see that?”
Tommy pointed at a painting. All it showed were the arms of a no doubt old and dead man. He had 10 fingers up in front of him. They hurried to the next portrait, but nothing. And so for the next portraits. But in the last painting the man held up 9 fingers.
            “Maybe that’s a sign that we are getting closer to the end.”
Robert remarked. They didn’t know if it was true, but at least they kept finding portraits with fewer and fewer fingers held up. In the end they had to crawl, and the portrait showed only one finger held horizontally. It was at another corner. But around the corner a surprise awaited them. There was a door. A very tiny door. A grown man wouldn’t have been able to get trough it, but for the children it wasn’t too much of a problem. One at a time they pulled themselves through. When all three had passed the door, they looked up. And they almost fell over in astonishment. Because there was something very wrong in this room. Everything was turned over 90 degrees. The carpet, the chairs and the table seemed to be on the side wall, and the window was at the ceiling. They were walking between some cupboards. Apparently they were in the kitchen.
           
Suddenly they boys heard a thud and a scream. They looked back. Anna rubbed her toe. She had bumped into the stove. Not knowing what else to do, they headed for the next door. They had to climb through it. Now they found themselves in the living room. But not at the floor, and not at the wall. They were standing on the ceiling. Everything was upside down. Or they were upside down and everything was normal. But anyway, something was again very wrong. Tommy started to get nauseous a bit from all the changes in perspective. Quickly they made their way to the next door, trying to avoid the standing lamps that hung from the floor, and the big chandelier that rose from the ceiling. They jumped for the door that was now high above them, and rolled into the bedroom. At least it was the right way up. In the middle there was a big bed, bigger than they had ever seen. In the middle of the bed was a big bump. It looked round, and exactly the size of the ball they had been looking for. Robert and Tommy each went to a side of the bed, and took a point of the sheet. Slowly they rolled the sheet back over the bed. When they reached the bump, they hesitated a bit. But at Anna’s encouragement they continued. And there it was, Anna’s red ball. Anna jumped on the bed and grabbed it. Tommy looked around; he saw stairs in the corner. Not as beautiful as the one in the lobby, just a simple wooden stairs. Anna got of the bed and joined Robert and Tommy. They climb the wooden stairs. The stairs crack under their weight, but they don’t break. Just when the light from the bedroom starts to fade, they reach a door. With some trouble Robert turns the knob, and pushes the door open. To their surprise they are back in the lobby again, the door most on the left. How was that possible? They hadn’t gone down, had they? But anyway, they were back near the exit again, and that was a good thing. With al last look at the marble stairs and all the other doors they left the house through the big wooden doors. Robert closes the doors behind him. Slowly it swings to a close while the children walk over the path towards the gate. With a big bang it closes behind them. The group walks towards the gate. There is a switch they can use to open it. It’s rusty, like the rest of the gate and the fence, but with a little push it starts to work. Without looking back the children leave the garden. And that’s a pity. Because if they had looked back, they would have seen the sign above the entrance door. The door closing had caused the dust above the entrance to fall off, and reveal a sign that said: ‘Welcome to the mystery and imagination of Mister Darius’. Behind the glass window next to the door an old man appeared in the shadows. With a sad look on his face he looked at the backs of the children. A small and wrinkled hand came up, and waved. Mister Darius went in again. Maybe next time someone would stay and really enjoy his house… 

vrijdag 8 april 2011

The sad little boy


Once upon a time there was a little boy named Charlie. He lived in a nice house, in the middle of a nice and quiet street. The houses were lined in two equal rows. On the other side the houses with the odd numbers, on Charlie’s side the houses with the even numbers. The numbering on his side of the street started at 10, nobody knew why. But that is why the house where Charlie lived had number 18, even though it was only the fifth house in the row. He often fantasized about the numbers 2 to 8. Sometimes they were wiped out of existence by a big storm that lifted them up high in the sky. Other times the people who had lived there loved their houses so much when they moved, that they had literally moved house one day.

Charlie fantasized a lot. In his imagination everything could and would happen. To him dragons were as normal as the street lights every few meters, and passing cars were as common as knights or astronauts. Charlie loved his imaginary world, because everything was possible. He loved to go there as much as he could. Often this had led him to the corner of the class room, when the master didn’t get a response from him when he asked Charlie a question. But Charlie didn’t really mind, because that corner only offered him more opportunities for his dream world: no masters bothering him with stupid questions or math exercises.

At first Charlie tried to share his fantasy world with his friends. Very enthusiastically he would start about dragons and damsels in distress, but without any exception all his friends looked at him weirdly after a few minutes. Because to Charlie, everything was so clear and normal, he forgot to explain most of his world to the others. So all his friends heard were incomprehensible fragments of fantasy. And you know how little boys are. They pick on everything and everyone that is different. Charlie didn’t fit into the standard of football, playing war in the park and talking about cars. He really tried to fit in, but he just couldn’t. Charlie didn’t understand what was so much fun about running around and kicking a ball, or pointing sticks at each other and saying ‘piew piew you’re dead!’ Out of a sort of guilt the other boys still invited him to play ball, but after a while, and after the ball had hit a dreaming Charlie in the head several times, that courtesy stopped. So very soon he was alone. Well, not entirely alone of course, because his fantasy provided him with a lot of company.

While the other boys were playing, Charlie would sit alone at the edge of the school yard or on the concrete wall surrounding the park, his eyes staring into the nothingness of this world, but the everythingness of his own world. In his mind Charlie fights off hordes of enemies from his castle. With heroic courage he saves the villagers and is their hero forever. They throw him cheerfully in the air, and then again. But at the third throw, there is suddenly no one there to catch him. When he gets up from the ground with a painful look on his face, he looks around. The castle is gone; Charlie is standing in the middle of a large plain. It is rather flat, with a few hills. The ground is trembling a little. He looks to where the sounds is coming from, and sees a big dust cloud in the distance, behind a row of hills. The rumbling gets louder and louder. Finally Charlie sees what was behind the hills causing the dust clouds. It is an enormous herd of bisons! Thousands of hoofs creating an impressive rhythm that swells in power every single second. And they are heading straight for him. Charlie starts to run. As fast as his little legs can carry him, he runs away from the bisons. Through the plains, over the hills, past the sparse bushes he runs. There is a little gathering of bushes on a small hill, and Charlie has to run past it. As he passes the last bush, his feet suddenly no longer feel support beneath them. The hill caved in and left a steep sand slide that took Charlie by surprise. He plummets down, rolling over and over. His mouth fills with sand. At the end of the slide is a big black hole. Charlie tries to stop, but he has so much speed that despite his efforts he falls into the hole. The hole seems endless. Charlie falls and falls. But then, out of nowhere, his fall is broken by a bouncing castle. Now he’s bouncing up and down within a big red and blue inflatable castle. Surprised he gets up straight. Now that he is bouncing on his feet, he can look around. The castle appears to be floating in a big ocean. Everywhere outside the plastic walls there is water. And in the water fish are swimming. Big fish, lots of little fish, jellyfish, even a shark slowly swims past. He seems to be winking at Charlie. From the right a big old turtle comes peddling by. He turns his head towards Charlie and says:
            “Charlie, stop dreaming! I’ve been looking all over for you. Diner is ready!”
The turtle sounds a surprising lot like his mother. Charlie rubs his eyes and opens them again. The castle, the turtle and the water are gone. Instead Charlie is back at the edge of the park, with his mother impatiently waiting in front of him.

The next day, Charlie walks all the way to school. Alone of course. When he arrives at the class room he notices something. There is an extra chair and table. At the table, turned on her chair to talk to his class mates, is a young girl. She doesn’t look like any of the girls from his class. Maybe she’s new. He doesn’t pay any more attention to it and finds his way to his own seat. Luckily that hasn’t been moved too much to make room for the new kid. When he gets up from putting down his bag, his eyes meet the loveliest face in the world. It belongs to the new girl. She is so beautiful. Charlie immediately feels warm inside. Her face is perfectly pink, and very smooth. Her nose forms the cute little center of it. Her lips shine a beautiful red. Her long dark brown hair elegantly falls down the side of her face.

The new girl is called Veronica. Her parents moved here from the other side of the country, and she doesn’t know anyone here. But that soon changes. She turns out to be very popular. Everyone loves Veronica. Both the teachers and the children. Charlie wants to meet her too, talk to her. But he is afraid. In his imagination he finds thousands of ways to talk to her, become friends with her, play with her. But in the real world all he does in front of her is say nothing and stare at her.
            “Hello Charlie, what do you want?”
She knows his name! That makes him feel even more uncomfortable. He now not only stares, but also makes weird movements in front of her. That scares Veronica, and she hurriedly turns away to play with some of her new friends. From that moment on Veronica avoids his look as much as she can.

It makes Charlie very sad that he can’t talk to Veronica. Not in real life anyway. In his imagination they have great and exciting adventures together. Charlie escapes to his imagination more and more often. He wanders off alone in the park, while the other boys play football on the school yard after school. A stick soon transforms into a mighty sword, which fights off the tree enemies. The birds aid him, but the squirrels have to be fought too. Charlie is happy in his own world. In this world he has everything under control. And he can always get out or create an entire new world when he wants to. Right now Charlie likes to be a knight, to fight the bad guys. The adventure. The excitement. Everything is great in this world. But then, a noise. It sounds like a twig breaking. Disturbed Charlie looks up. The knights are gone, the trees are just trees again, the birds are singing their happy tune like always. But something made that twig break. Charlie looks around. He sees something bright blue disappearing behind the big oak tree. Carefully he walks over there, trying to make as little sounds as possible. He hears someone breathing behind the tree. He stops for a bit at the other side of the tree to gather courage. Then he jumps around the tree to find…

Veronica. It is his new classmate Veronica behind the big oak tree, dressed in her bright blue winter coat. He is very surprised to see her here. She laughs. That makes him realize why she must be here. She will tell of him to their classmates. And then they will make fun of him very much. That scares him and makes him very sad. In tears Charlie runs away. He sits down at another big oak tree and starts crying. After a while he hears footsteps approaching. He braces himself for the terrible laughter. But no, she says:
“I’m sorry that I scared you Charlie. I was just very curious. Were you playing knights and princesses?”
 Charlie is surprised. He hears concern in her voice. With a hand dirty from the woods he dries his tears and looks up. He sees that same beautiful face from a few weeks ago. Veronica gives him a warm smile.
            “Can I play with you? That is, if you don’t mind of course.”
It turns out that Veronica doesn’t really like to play with the other girls. She thinks they play stupid and childish games. She likes to use her imagination when she plays.
            “Yes Veronica, you can play with me.”
Charlie manages to say with a lot of nerves. She helps him up, and soon Charlie has explained to her who the good guys or the bad guys were.
            “But there is no princess in my world. What to do now?”
He says a little sad. But Veronica knows the answer to that one.
“Then we can just imagine a princess into existence. Just like that. I can be princess Veronica, and then you are the brave knight Charles.”
Together they play. Together they explore each others imagination. Together everything is possible. They play until the sun has to go to bed. They both rush home, but they promise each other that they will meet again after school the very next day. Because their imagination awaits!