Liam's dilemma

“Look at him

He’s been at it for an hour now”

Elly tells me as she rolls her eyes. We both were seated on a high ceiling beam of a studio apartment, our home, a risky move if so. Only concentrating on the boy seated on the floor below, it would’ve been a fatal ending for us if there was a possibility of that in the first place. I looked hard at Elly, She was most definitely one of the most distinguished of the lot, having hung around for more than thousands of years, and the signs of being a ghost had barely touched her light skin. I on the other hand, one strong gust of wind and I’d return back to ashes. Elly flew and scooted closer to me. Barely touching the wood, she waved her wispy fingers around as she mocked poor Liam below. The mortal had been flipping through the pages of the “Fancy New Home” catalogue, stopping for five minutes at each page of the wallpaper color section and then moving on to the next, the exhaustion on his neck growing by each turn.

“Bright and white, you are quite the amuser if you still describe yourself with such colors Elly

Not to alarm you but shady and fading would suit you better”

Elly stares at my comment. i point to her swinging toes and laugh. The fast wind was erasing the thin outline of her translucent feet; immediately lifting them up, she crosses them instead.

A bit offended, she explains herself

“Bright and white is the most common color one selects for their new home. You know we are not going to habitat here any longer Marge. I need to leave this place knowing that this incompetent man has listened to us and colored it a peaceful white.”

We had moved in here around three hundred years back. Looking around, it teemed with our memories and our living. The ceiling was quite high up still accommodating us with a lot of room for us to fly around. The cool wind from the tall windows every morning was our favorite friend in keeping us a crystalline fresh.

But as the days had grown shorter, my longing to touch the room had grown that much more painful. The walls which we had once shyly ordained with our marriage portraits and the window-sills where we once watered our sweet lily plants, they filled my mind with short lived memories. Elly still had the same moral look from back then, A little less opaque and a little more translucent, the bright white light from the windows shone through her and her outline grew invisible. We had been too brave back then, I look at my own fading limbs.

Liam let out a long groan from below as he stretched beyond his length. Four whole days and still unable to decide on the color white among all for us to confirm. He would surely have been considered as one of the local idiots during our time, I realize suddenly.

Elly spoke to herself “despite not having us around from tomorrow, it’d be nice if our home carried on feeling like the ghosts of its first ever owners”

She looked concerned now, furrowing her eyebrows at Liam. I look down and see him now splayed across the floor still stretching, and staring high, right past our presence, at the ceiling.

I laughed at her pun.

Liam is in pain.

It’s too bright of a day, the harsh humid wind slapping across the pages as they flip furiously.

Liam lets out a short sigh. Closing his eyes, “This house is starting to feel more haunted day-by-day”. Speaking aloud, he catches the ears of Marge and Elly. It’s indeed a dilemma. He had started to notice small things changing magically at every turn. “Every single time I call my building manager about the renovation of this place, the calls get cut. Whenever the renovation labourers start painting the walls a bold golden, the paint gets magically erased and I’m left with a lot of awkward explaining to do. Rumours have started to go out that I’m a shape shifting witchess. Personally I liked the goblin rumour better.” Liam laughs to himself and then goes silent in hindsight.

The empty grey aesthetic of his studio room contrasted heavily with his bright pink-blue outfit which contrasted again with his rugged boyish hands. Looking at the mess of magazines at his folded legs, a cool breeze surprised him and he scrunched his freckled nose. Right then several pages of the catalogues folded themselves into dog ears. All pointing to a brand of furniture infamously known to use white. A swift movement but Liam blames it on the cold wind from earlier. He wasn’t half wrong.

Faithfully closing each magazine so as to not cause a mess, he got up to clear his head. He stretched his arms out to the wall in front and squinted through a tiny square he made with his thumbs and forefingers. “There seems to be a very particular color this haunted house wants me to select”

Several dog eared pages opened right below on the floor, all showing the beauties of a fine white aesthetic.

“Why is it so windy on a summer afternoon?” Marge looked at him amazed. Amazed at his parody of dialogue.

He lazily looks across the room, a color that would make it look bigger would be a suitable choice for its damaged walls, something of a lighter shade. Paying homage to the previous owners he thought, maybe a boring brown or a mellow lemon mint.

Elly rolled her dry eyes. Liam took a sip from his bold grey coffee mug which unnoticed by him had turned whitish during recent days.

“I really am not going forward if I don’t make the correct decision right now” sulking he rested his hands on his hips.

Another long reading session in and Liam was done.  Its 4.30 pm now, the suns still high and glaringly white. Liam picked up his coffee mug, now with just ghostly white milk in it, odd, and sipped it as he cooled down from the reading session. Carefully avoiding the now individual sheets of the winter wonderland special of the Wallpaper World magazine placed over the carpet, he thought deeply about his dilemma.

He Walked up to the kitchen, hoping for a quick snack, and opened the fridge when right then his cell rang. “Little White Lies” blared and he picked up in 2 seconds. Funny ringtone. Bending his neck as he balanced the phone, he swung the fridge door open, “hello?”

Why are there just eggs in the fridge?

“Yes hello Liam, Calling to ask if you have finished deciding a shade for your wall painting already, I’ve arranged an appointment with the building manager, he’s bound to come around in an hour or two”

“No no no ... Wait” frozen, he spoke to his reflection off the silvery fridge door

The caller continued “Finalize the decision with your sister and call me back, oh also do you happen to know where I can buy some cheap Christmas gifts? My girlfriend’s coming to town and I am in trouble, hope it’s a white Christmas, fingers crossed?”

Liam ended the call.

He hurried back to the catalogue after banging the fridge shut dramatically throwing Elly into a startle. She flew towards Liam, who was frantically looking for that one yellow mint page he had bookmarked, when right then a wind blew across the page, turning to section W3, a spring collection inspired by lilies. Liam fell cold at this sudden breeze near him and stared hard at the page that was in front of him. The bright white couch and a Persian cat framed photogenically in the glossy magazine sheet, thinking harder he raised an eyebrow. Elly now practically enveloping the boy with her cool presence, struck her arm across the page, preventing it from flipping to another one.

The dusky warm wind grew in pressure and the walls grew moist. Marge sighed as her opinion of Liam and his IQ was now pretty low, she observed Elly with hopeful eyes. Looking around at the mess, she snapped her fingers with magic and glancing at the countless white mugs in the counter, she turned yet another mug white.

“Did he just say it was Christmas? Can’t be, my birthday was a week back, April 24th.. Or was it on the 25th?”

Speaking softly, a shiver ran down his spine.

“I am pretty sure it’s April and not December” He slowly shifted his eyes to the wall calendar.

2 days till Christmas. A huge cross marked the 24th of December, ‘Bound to snow!’ written in bold. Gulping down his confusion, his head went blank. Unable to think and unable to speak, Liam felt trapped under an invisible presence.

Marge, now extremely hopeful looked wide eyed at Elly. Elly looked back at her, both nodding in synchrony at each other’s confirmation. A whole minute and Liam closed the catalogue, dusk had fallen and it was sunset now. A decision made by him, for the house, for Marge and Elly and for everyone’s sanity involved in this situation, probably even his sister’s.

“Hi Paul yes, I’m calling back about the building manager, I’ve made the decision, you can ask him to come by in about half hour now”. Elly flew back into Marge’s arms and they embraced each other.

Liam obediently cleaned up the mess, the mugs scattered across the carpet and the kitchen counter, the countless sheets of magazine paper flying and most importantly the several volumes of the “fancy new home” catalogue. He smirked as he thought back on his day. It had been so obvious all along. Hesitant to admit to himself, Liam realized he had been pretty slow in catching on.

The building manager arrived. A group of noisy labourers, eager to catch a glimpse of this rumoured shape-shifting goblin, accompanied him. Marge and Elly, also curious, checked Liam’s demeanour. He stood confidently in front of his labourer fans, ordering them to neatly cover the furniture before doing anything to the walls. Marge had begun to turn back Liam’s belongings to their original colors. Bringing back life into the white house, she looked at Elly’s bitter-sweet expression. However harsh she might have been to poor Liam, she knew in the end he was only a mortal, she felt proud now. She thought to herself, her strong presence combined with Marge’s magical abilities was better than any Ouija board on the market.

“Pastel red”

Elly blinked twice. In a moment of 2 seconds the labourers whipped out their paint mixers and combined red with white. Elly blinked again.

“The spirit of Christmas. It’s a beautiful time to curl up on your poofy sofas and watch classic Christmas movies. What better way to pay respect to the magical time than to paint your own home with red” the labourers hurriedly plastered the paint onto the walls, expecting the fabled magical erasing of the paint to take place. No such thing occurred. Marge fearfully looked at Elly, she was in shock.

Liam smirked at the labourers. I guess my dilemma is solved. He felt satisfied.

Elly felt smaller as the clock ticked. The night had fallen and she had grown almost transparent. The street lights from outside shone right through her and lit up the studio room, a bright white.