Homes aren't supposed to bleed

Homes aren’t supposed to bleed

I felt a hint of warmth wash over me as I stood before the old box TV. It was playing recorded 90’s commercials. It certainly wasn’t the top-tier modern technology bought with small cards by people who didn’t know what to do with their money. But it was good enough for a small child with one lonesome Barbie doll and Mr. Teddy with only one eye.

The birds whistled friendly songs in those early morning hours and enjoyed the fresh summer air. Not me. I searched for the remote between the polyester couch cushions (my brother always managed to stuff it in there). Occasionally my mother would walk by and eye me carefully as I threw the overthrow on the floor, then suggest I go outside and enjoy the sun instead. Of course, it wasn’t a suggestion. A clear expression was always written on her face, and this one told me it was time to listen. So, I unlocked the backdoor, ensuring to jingle the keys for her to hear me. My feet would barely touch the grass, and then I would listen to her typing aggressively in her tiny study. My father always said I was sneaking around right under their noses, and he was right. I was not exactly riding my bicycle to shoplift with my friends like they did in movies, but I was good at quietly tiptoeing into the living room behind my mother’s back.

While I waited for the old, balding man to finish announcing the so-boring news, I sat cross-legged on the floor with a magazine and an overflowing bowl of sugary cereal. I barely knew why I chose to read those magazines, of all things. They were ancient and full of dust. My parents collected them for years, and then they were all over the house—you could find them in the kitchen cupboard leaning against the broken kettle, which they kept forgetting to throw away. I found them under my bed once. I suppose I could have called my parents ‘collectors’, although truthfully, ‘hoarders’ was a better description. I often got lost in all the heaping piles of forgotten clothes, albums, and books that were strangling the house, especially when their spring-cleaning fads ended.

We were not buying new things constantly, as this might make it seem. We were rather low on money at that stage—the past was desperate to escape from our cupboards and drawers, no matter how many times we cleaned up again. The floors became littered with memories and broken items that were once a part of the family. It was a sad sight, even for an eight-year-old. Although it was oddly endearing, seeing my home become a tightly knit web trying to hold together all the stories it once told. I knew my parents couldn’t throw these things away. If they did... what would they have left? An empty, empty home.

That’s what they believed anyway. It was enough for me to sit in front of our outdated television as I imagined fighting alongside the wise Kung Fu masters. Every few minutes, I would have to hit the side so the sound became less garbled. I was so focused on the story that I regularly forgot to finish my cereal, and it just stood there on the floor. My mother wasn’t happy when she accidentally knocked it over once. The most exciting day to switch on the television was on Saturdays. Morning cartoons took over every channel. I sat so closely; the pixels on the screen danced on every corner, and the voices played over repeatedly in my head. I wondered how long it took to draw all those characters. The television was a dim light in my home, burning away time and leaving me ignorant for a little while.

The house got smaller every year. I could do nothing but watch as the walls closed in on me each night. I started forgetting who I was in this home—was I an inhabitant? Or was I becoming a memory along with all the junk? My father got a new job in the city. Which meant that I barely saw him, and he became part of the memories in the house. This still meant that he brought home more money than we could handle.

My mother became even more obsessive over the next two years. The hoarding didn’t contain old objects anymore and instead became a pile of new ornaments that meant nothing. They peered over me as mountains did. The only breathable room was the living room, as I made a pathway to watch TV. The box sat on top of a wobbly washing machine. At night, I crouched past the leviathans in the house and followed the illuminating light of the television. I was careful not to let the floors creak as I memorized the noisiest spots. The light was unnaturally inviting, casting its hands towards me as a loving mother would.

My mother no longer scolded me for sitting too close to the screen or told me to go outside. She didn’t particularly talk to me at all. I figured the house had swallowed her like it did my old toys. I was terrified of finding her in between all the breathing ornaments. One night I watched a movie about a tall, harrowing house. The story was that the house became alive each night, the dark shutters opening and closing by themselves. The lonely house stood on a misty hill, overlooking all the other houses. I wondered how it must feel to watch comfortable havens, occupied by warm bodies and laughter, while you collected dust, hopelessly searching for someone to look past your dark exterior.

I think my mother missed my father.

I was too small to understand. But I tried. I looked for her in every corner. I found her sitting in her study one day, and there painfully lingered someone else in her place. Somebody sadder. The light barely peered through the blinds in the study, and the heaps of paper overflowing in the unseen dustbin were overwhelming. She slept restlessly on the mahogany desk, cluttered with family photos. She blended into the dark blue wallpaper. I could not shake this terrible feeling that she would melt into the house and leave no one behind. I was too scared to even look at her, so I hoped to forget about her entirely.

The exciting action movies that were shown every Sunday kept my mind busy. I remember they showed Terminator over the weekend once. I was fascinated by the story. It gave me a fleeting moment of hope- as if anyone could be a hero. My heart leapt out of my chest each time Sarah Connor was in danger, and the house became alive with every yell. It was like something changed within the structure of our familiar abode when I sat on the carpet with bright colours reflecting off my face. The cracks in the walls smiled along with me. My lukewarm tea, nearly falling off the heap of magazines I used as a table, waited for me to remember it. So did my mother.

And then there was blood. Not the kind that travelled beneath the skin and dripped so painfully onto the floor. Nor was it the kind that was spilled on the TV screen in gory horror movies. The house itself was bleeding. It oozed through the walls. It soaked into the clothes on the floor and left grotesque stains where life had once been. It was everywhere. I retain this memory as if it were a real event, but now I know it must have been a dream. Even then, I knew that something wasn’t right. Homes aren’t supposed to bleed.

I would wake up with my stomach twisted in guilt. I imagined my mother asking me, Why have you forgotten about me? But I didn’t. I remembered her Rosie Jane perfume as she used to sit next to me, watching reruns of the Swan Lake ballet. I recalled her strict voice telling me it was time to go to bed and that I had to switch off the VCR. Her jewellery noisily sang when she brought me homemade banana muffins, so I didn’t forget to eat. But now she was just another ornament that decorated the house. I felt it was my fault, and maybe I hadn’t tried hard enough. Even as an adult, the guilt consumed my every thought.

But I was only a child, and it didn’t have to be this way.

I was only a child, and the meaning of home crumbled around me. I was only a child as my mother’s burdens were collected in her footsteps through the halls. I was only a child when I felt solace in old movies and cartoons that played on repeat. I was only a child when I had to watch the house bleed. My habitation was beside the saloons in the westerns and on the roads less travelled by brave adventurers. It was inside the tape recordings that contained nostalgic old commercials. I hoarded these homes myself.