Cursed Home II

Continued from PART ONE

*****

In one way or another, thanks to a spontaneous trip to the moving van rental shop, I had all of my stuff in the living room by about eight that night. Probably should have ate some time before that but Janice had ordered Chinese for us as a celebratory last meal and even cold was still good. I toured her while I wolfed down my noodles and chicken, trying my best to explain where everything was going to go and why.

“So you going to make a mess down here too?” she asked as we looked around the empty den.

“It’s not a mess! Mess is messy, everything I do is at worst disorganized,” I argued, maybe I didn’t have a set of shelves in my furniture but I still didn’t feel like her critique of me was ever fair, “Plus I have a storage room over here.”

Opening the door to the fourth bedroom, I was met with a small closet filled with shelves and a couple of bottles of toilet bowl cleaner and a lemon detergent. Wasn’t this supposed to be a room? Hadn’t this been a room? I know Ira had said this was a closet and it was definitely that now but I had sworn that this had been another bedroom. Not that that would make sense, there was no space down here for one like that.

“This won’t fit all your crap, Ed,” Janice scoffed, “You need an actual room for that.”

“No,” I argued but hesitated a couple of seconds to just stare at the closet before shaking my head and admitting, “Ira’s mood must have got me all turned around.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time today you got distracted,” Janice chuckled to herself as she wandered around the rest of the basement.

She left an hour or two later after she helped me get my bare mattress into my new bedroom and I paid her for my half of supper. It had been cold and ordered a couple of hours before I had eaten it but it was technically my fault. I had told her that I was just about finished before getting latched onto where I wanted my laptop and desk set up. Two hours later and a half dozen phone calls I had internet and an appointment set up for tomorrow mid-afternoon.

In hindsight, I should have probably caught something was wrong when the cable company called back the next morning and cancelled. They told me that there had been a scheduling mishap and they could only come next week. He muttered something about if I had lasted that long then he’d set it up. I muttered my thanks back but hung up rather annoyed.

The first day had been all about unpacking then because if I wasn’t going to get internet until next week then I would have to ration out my cell plan. Emails were the big priority. I had to make sure I didn’t piss off my new boss by being late on my second assignment but I needed the house in order before I could start. That probably won’t go over well but I’ll deal with that burning bridge when I came to it.

Sadly, there was a lot of disagreement within me that day and it took significantly longer for anything to be put in its place. A lot of stuff seemed to want to go into the pink room but I wanted that space dedicated to my traditional practice. My easel I found in the basement more than a couple of times when I needed to move around the master bedroom. Well, it was my office. For some reason, I had put my mattress there just to see how it looked once and confirmed my suspicion that it was a better office.

The second day I found that I tried putting the mattress there a couple of more times and every time it just seemed wrong. Not that I didn’t like the idea of sleeping in the large, well cared for bedroom. It was just that I didn’t need that much space to sleep and I liked not feeling claustrophobic when I worked.

Continuing the pattern of the first day, I couldn’t seem to make up my mind on where anything should go. I worked on one room only to come into the next and have it feel all wrong and needed to change it around. I think I ate my first real meal around three and that didn’t help either. I swear this place was giving me a headache. Actually, that was the reason I ate. There was a burger shop next to the hardware store where I picked up a carbon monoxide detector and dozen or so hooks to hang paintings.

I won’t lie, I may have skipped every meal the third day and then went out for nachos at around seven. This place was fascinating. It felt so full of character and desire that it was hard to pin anything down to where I wanted it. Not that I had ever found a place that did. Every home that I had ever had seemed to get rearranged monthly and every attempt to settle down was met by a spontaneous trip to the hardware store or craft shop for more paint and brushes.

—

“Have you considered ever seeing someone?” the thin man asked me with a deep frustration that I couldn’t seem to fathom.

“No?” I asked back, “For what?”

“ADHD,” Ira growled. I wasn’t expecting someone that small could be so loud or so angry.

“Well,” I muttered, “It was suggested once.”

“No, it was thirty-seven different times,” Ira turned a stated, “I had to go and check because when I moved everything to the basement you came back and asked why had you needed everything down here.”

“You moved it?” I asked, trying to think of how to respond to him, “Did you get help?”

“No!” Ira scoffed at me.

“Then how did you move it?” I asked quietly.

It was hard to understand because all he did was squint at me but in an instant, all my stuff rotated about ninety degrees in the room with a small pop. That didn’t seem right. At least, my dresser looked a lot happier in the west corner than it did in the north one.

“You are impossible!” Ira growled, now with a deep, unearthly booming vibration mixed with a high pitched whisper, “You are absolutely the worst creature I have ever had to deal with.”

“What did I do wrong?” I asked quietly.

“Wrong?” Ira asked completely deflated and gave out the longest sigh I had ever heard, “I don’t even know. You won, you get the house. I don’t. What are you?”

“Three-quarters Irish?” I responded.

“No,” Ira growled again before asking plainly, “Who do you work for? This has to be Me’bol’thantian’estly’s work.”

“Living Bright Design?” I tried my best to answer his question but they didn’t make sense. He knew all this when I filled out my application.

“Okay,” Ira chuckled, “hmm, who sent you?”

“Mr. Matherson,” I said quietly, “You did. You’re the one who put the ad up on the bus station.”

“Powers beyond,” Ira muttered, teeth now chattering in a mix of anger and frustration, “I need a holiday.”

*****

THE END