Hilltop House

House, Two

Who does baby look alike? Mother, Father--who's to say? For Mother smiles and Father laughs while baby cries all day!

The woman . . . she broods. The heaviness about her is black, as if she were draped in some sort of dark velour curtains. Like something out of the macabre, labyrinthine mansion I wish I were. Oh, in another life, I am that house. Who can control their origin? Not I, surely, as little as can the ones who walk about within me control theirs. And maybe some of us would be better not having been made, though the choice was never ours and is unprofitable to ponder once we are sentient enough to question it.

I think I began to enjoy those little rhymes, the ones for children, when they brought the baby home. The woman--not this new, sad one but my first--doted on the ugly thing, read it books and books of those poems about eggs cracking themselves and children falling down hills and cats losing mittens . . . all very bizarre, and it wasn't as if the infant could even understand. It just cried and cried, regardless of whatever she attempted to read to it. How she seemed to love the thing! And why? All it did was torment her with its constant needs. By then, I'd grown quite weary of them, she and him; I was tired of their charades . . . they deserved what happened to them, but that isn't to say I don't still think of them and how things might have been different for us all. Only they and she--my new one, the girl--have ever caused that certain something to stir within, to awaken the sensation behind my plaster, within the very fabric and foundation of myself, and being more knowledgeable, now, I am sure to fend better this second time around.

I am alive, again! And after being dead for too long.

Oh, that reminds me of the humiliation I suffered . . . when she commented on my old pipes. To hear such condemnation, such disgust from her perfect lips . . . ah, but the woman spoke in my favor—I recognize she may not be stimulating, but perhaps she'll do, otherwise. She was right, too; I am clean in every way, but I need reviving, and once this old foundation restores its energy, entirely reawakens, I will shock and amaze! Subtly, of course. Slowly. There's no need for anything drastic, at the moment. I don't anticipate they'll be leaving anytime soon, and how much better is a slow victory?

I want to please the girl, and I want her to please me. Oh, she has yet to touch me, really, beyond functionality, quick hands on doorknobs and feet on floors and such. I do enjoy those sensations, but I desire closer contact. I'd hoped she'd begin to decorate the walls of my (her?) room—the part of me she's chosen to occupy. We can refer to it as her room for now, because while all rooms are my rooms, even though those within my walls infuriatingly refer to them as their own, I am willing to give a piece of myself to her, if she'll only give me pieces of herself in return.

I am fascinated by her walls, her foundation. These people aren't too different from myself, really. Aren't they frameworks wrapped in canvas, as am I? Perhaps our materials differ, but our general makeups are the same. They have windows into their interiors, as do I; they are full of cavities and hollows and rooms of their own. Likely many have those secret passages and shadowy corners and dark attics I would've had if I'd been one of those old mansions. And if they're made-up as I am, surely they house various occupants of their own! I've certainly seen many invaders come and go in the various sorts I've had to put up with over the years. Rapidly shifting concerns moving in and out and across them, some of their occupants as disgusting as my own though probably an occasional sparkle or stimulant once in a while.

I've begun to wonder what occupants she houses, to wish I could peer into her windows, open her doors to take a peek inside. My occupants have always felt entirely at ease violating my boundaries, walking all throughout me, touching me and changing my insides and outside as they see fit. It was a terrifying experience at first, but I've grown accustomed to it, though my vulnerability and their lack of empathy for my circumstances have never quite sat well with me. She reminds me of my fears, reminds me that I'm exposed, opened up in front of them, no real ability to stop them from trespassing into the most intimate parts of me. Wouldn't they be scandalized, mortified, infuriated to have anyone take such liberties beyond their walls? In their rooms? Ah, but they do not think of that. None of them ever have.

But she . . . she makes me feel, somehow, shy. Anxious. As if she were my first all over again.

I will begin by accommodating her, quietly. In small ways. Didn't I recognize her annoyance with the doors? Poor design, for sure, though strange that I'd never noticed it until she did. And the floors . . . she did not seem to appreciate the lack of heat. I will attempt to warm them, though I dare not do too much, or the mother will surely realize something's amiss. These are not, after all, heated floors. I have always preferred the cold, myself, but their bodies are made of softer stuff than mine; though I may crack and crumble, they are affected by the most mundane trivialities--temperature, organic materials they must consume every so often, long stretches without dormancy. They are tender beings, sensitive and malleable. I've usually deemed them pathetic. Why it is there have been a select few whom I feel inclined to protect, to cherish, is a mystery even to me. But perhaps we are all like that. Even they--surely even they wish to protect and cherish a certain few, and none can know the reason as to which or why.