Page 40 - North Star Literary & Art Magazine

another. Sticking sugar free sweets, and unwarranted casseroles in front of her door so often that it brought her to develop a habit of looking down before she took her first step out in the morning for fear that she’d trip over a Bundt cake.
Nevertheless, she’d been polite. She never shouted, never raised her voice at some- one or asked them to leave. She just sat at her table and played solitaire, ignoring the door and the phone until all sounds came to silence, where at last, she could be alone with her thoughts.
The number of offerings were starting to dwindle though. She thought maybe every- one had figured out that it was time to let her be, but at that point, she saw that the small-talk and homemade plates had found a new host across the street. She didn’t know when, but apparently someone had bought that house. It went up for sale years ago. That alone would have shocked her enough, but soon there was all kinds of ruckus going on outside. Waves of construction vehicles went back and forth, carrying enormous sheets of glass, thicker than a hundred of her bifocal lenses put together. The hammering and the beating went on for some unfathomable stretch of time, waking her up at precisely eight in the morning, disturbing her teatime, and making the evening news almost incomprehensible. She hated it most when it would throw off her daily game of solitaire, battering until she was disengaged, staring off into space, holding just the ace of hearts in her idle hand.
On Sundays after church, she sat on her porch, mouth agape, watching the old house being ripped off the foundation just to have an entirely new one be put in its place. It was none of her business, but she was deathly curious about the glass. Why glass? It’s been weeks and there wasn’t a single stitch of wood on the construction site. Not a saw or a nail to be found. Only glass.
Still, that was nothing compared to months later when the sound had finally ceased. She jolted out of bed because it was already two in the afternoon.
The construction crew must have left! Hip-hip hooray, that damn house was done!
She remembers that day. She had a late start, but she was hardly upset considering that all the noise was gone. Maybe she’d go for a walk after some lunch since she already slept through breakfast, but she couldn’t complain. She was well rested for once. There were lots of things to do now that her long-awaited silence was back, but before she got busy with that, she wanted to see what all those long days of commotion had wrought. Must be a sight to see if it cost almost nine months of her peace to build.
Sight to see it was indeed—in fact, she’d never seen anything like it.
Across the road was a gleaming new house, built entirely out of glass, shining like a gargantuan snow globe from the roof to its studs.
Unreal.
If she had to guess what was happening over there for all these months, which she did to no avail, she never would have thought it would have been the fishbowl that was blink- ing her in the face from the other side of the road. It was shocking. She never got used to seeing it over there.
That house may as well have been empty. There was no car—not even a bicycle. She never saw anyone come in or out of it, but it stood up astonishingly. It took on the rain and shine, then the snow and ice, sitting like the ungodly ornament that it was until a year of time had lapsed and it was spring again.
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