The House

Short fiction

The house had been abandoned for a long time, since 1978.

Abandoned houses hold the ghosts of their inhabitants and their smiling faces in dusty frames on the walls.

John had mysteriously hanged himself. Peter is gone, but he's still in the house, standing over the unlit fireplace, sitting in a chair with his Labrador on his lap. And Monica, who married an English soldier and was never seen on earth again, is now just a faded black and white photograph.

Unlike her brothers Peter and John, Mónica isn´t a smiling photo. Her smile disappeared the day she was told she wouldn't be able to get pregnant. Her shoulders, slumped and lifeless since then, have never hugged anyone, not even the English soldier. Her smile faded and lost its shine, and the glamorous tone of her skin turned into deep wrinkles.

These are ghosts that roamed the house, the souls of the three brothers, inhabitants without flesh and blood, in other words, memories of bodies that once existed. Flesh could smile and dream, lives that were stolen by the Yellow House.

Anyone passing in front of the house felt a shiver run up and down their spine. It's the sound of this house's voice and the desperate cries for help from its trapped ghosts.

People say that the house has a secret tunnel in the basement, and they believe the tunnel is an access route to a parallel world where other ghosts live.

Everyone believes this theory- all but one. Maria knows all the secrets of the house, she's its neighbor. Every morning, Maria walks past the house and feels that shiver run down her spine. Maria believes the shiver is her old best friend Mónica's way of saying hello.

Maria misses her and is the only one who keeps a color portrait of Mónica. They grew up and played together, and Mónica never told her about any tunnel in the house. Every day Maria remembers her friend when she feels the chill and greets Mónica with a smiling hello.

Even though people call her crazy, Maria knows that Mónica is a memory that still lives in the house. People's souls never leave their homes; it's their bodies that do, like someone leaving old clothes hanging in the closet.

Maria is wise and realizes that one day, all time will be past, and memory will be nothing more than a dream with ghosts called longing. That's why she makes a point of making the most of her time, because memory and time, life and the future are just something we waste slowly, day after day until there is no more time or memory.

But despite being abandoned, the house had a kind of soul, as if it were alive. It also had an identity. “The Yellow House”, they called it. It stood at a junction between roads once used for witchcraft rituals.

The Yellow House was still standing, and no signs of decay were visible. It has existed for 100 long years. But no one can outlast it.

That day, when Monica woke up, she felt a shiver run down her spine. What a terrifying dream. A yellow house where the ghosts of former residents live.

She decided to call Maria. She called several times, but no one answered on the other end. She got up and ran to the house of her only friend, Maria. No one was home. And no one was ever at Maria's house again. She disappeared without a trace. Mónica looked everywhere. She searched endlessly.

After all these years, Mónica still wonders if Maria is just a figment of her imagination or just another victim of the yellow house of her dreams, of the secret tunnel, which Maria may have accidentally gone through in search of Peter and John.

Since that day, Mónica has lived in torment, she hasn't been able to get pregnant with her English husband and the wrinkles on her face have become rivers through which tears flow.

Mónica, Maria, Peter, John, the English soldier and Maria longed. They have become ghosts forever trapped in the yellow house of Mónica's dreams.

---

Rolando Andrade, 2025

Trending on Medium:

https://medium.com/me/stats/post/02d8c779cbef

https://medium.com/me/stats/post/bef40c940e3d