Dimensio

Chapter 3: Psychedelic Colours

The neighbourhood was secluded and calm; the houses were no more than twenty-five, scattered all over the blazing sand along with sparse bushes. A single bumpy and broken road went through the deserted town. 

Laura strolled on the road, with a polaroid in her hand clicking pictures at a tremendous pace. She carried a maroon handbag with her. Her mind was busy searching for the main spot. She remembered the house well -- it was small, old-fashioned with a red portico and a wooden porch. She extracted a clipping from her handbag, and examined the photograph again.

The houses resembled each other more or less. Most of them were small, two-storied and had a spacious porch in front of them. But the house she was looking for set itself apart from others; it was clearly uninhabited. Covered in cracks and crevices, with joints so fragile it might turn into debris any minute, the house wasn't difficult to spot.

Laura started clicking polaroids. Each shot focused at a different aspect of the wrecked structure: one at the dusty and termite-ridden porch, one at the empty chair and table on it, one at the damaged portico, one at the rotting remains of dead plants in what she suspected was once a garden, one at the barely visible gravel path concealed by overgrown weed and hoppers prowling around.

After clicking about twenty photos, she slipped the camera into her handbag, and walked on. A hundred feet from the first house, was another larger house. It was quite similar to the former, except that its condition was better maintained, the portico was blue in colour, and the chair was occupied by an amiable-looking elderly woman. 

"Excuse me?" Laura asked, forcing a friendly smile.

"Yes, dear?" the elderly woman replied with a more genuine smile.

"I...actually I'm a journalist and I was wondering if I could have a little chat with you? If you don't mind?"

"Sure, sweetie. Come right away," she said. "And if you don't mind, just pick up that plastic chair in the yard...the blue one, yes."

Laura picked it up obligingly, and dragged it up to the porch. 

"Have a seat, sweetie. Sorry for the trouble. Arthritis is a pain in the ass." Laura raised her eyebrows with surprise. "Quite literally," she said, and burst into a prolonged laughter, with intervals of heavy inhaling and high-pitched gasps. 

Laura joined in the laughter awkwardly. "So, what I wanted to ask was..."

"Your name." 

"I'm sorry?"

"What's your name, sweetie?"

"Laura. Laura Turner,"

"Ah. That's a pretty name. So, what is it that you want to ask me?"

"You probably know about your next door neighbour? A man called Ralph?"

"Oh, the one who committed suicide a couple of weeks ago?"

"Um...yeah?"

"I did know him. A really sweet young lad he was. What a pity, isn't it? In many ways, he reminded me of my son."

Laura giggled. "I see. So, what did you know about him?"

"Not much, you see. He was a man of business -- real estate, if I'm not wrong. Even my son was a man of business; that just increased my liking for him. You know, I really used to hate all these businessmen when I was young. I thought they all were boring asshats. Until one day my son came up to me and asked..."

And then, she began to narrate how her son gained interest in business, and how she thought that he'd get no girl if he went into business, and some other story of her son's friend which Laura didn't pay any attention to.