The Justice Building

Rooms For Rent: Justice Building

It was a cold and unforgiving winter. The warmth and happiness was gone from the lonely earth. By the time of the first snow, I felt as though the warmth would leave the earth. The fog enveloped the dirty city and the grit stuck to my very soul. As the faceless drones walked past the enormous building in which I resided, they seemed to vanish just outside the window pane. When its cold, the Justice Building mirrors the weather. The usual warm light I would see coming in through the window would turn cold and sour.
    A few artisans looked at the building in awe. It's beautiful gilded lions in front who guard the entrance. The marble and granite collided to make the architecture smooth and polished. Photographers will spend hours finding the right place to snap an image, then hurry along, just like everyone else. The Justice Building has hundreds of rooms, only three are occupied.
My landlady has lived in the building for 50 years. Pictured adorned the walls of a goroeus and lively women. Scarlet hair, red lips and beautiful figure of an actress in her prime. There are pictures of her with famous actors and directors and tarnished awards littered her shelves. Her voice is almost a whisper. She never has visitors and never goes to see anyone. She has all her items delivered, never goes and picks them up. She's alway polite and understand if the rent will be a day late. 
The next tenant is a tall man, willowy and built like lodgepole pine. I do not know his name but he loves old cowboy movies. Our common plays John Wayne into the night and often the wee hours of the morning. He can be found lurking behind Helen, the landlady, as she bids me farewell in the morning and welcomes me back in the afternoon.
Unfortunately Helen is beginning to show her age, her coughs often stained red. She shuffles along slowing with an old oak cane. Her name still carries enough weight that the doctor at the clinic stopped by every week. That night I saw a tear rolling down his face, eyes welling up with more as he walked out the door. He placed his rough hand on my shoulder, and gives me his card when its time.
I'd come home that day, deeply conflicted after several months of searching, I had received a job at the drama academy across town. I knew it would be difficult to find a landlady as caring as Helen. Especially one who'd shared an almost striking resemblance to my own. She always waited for me when I came home from my low paying job, greet me with a smile and ask me how my day had gone. Helen forgive so many late payments to my rent that now have the money to pay my rent on time.
Helen had slowly become my only friend. I realize I didn't see many people, rarely went out for fun, I was looking forward to making new friends and memory. But I didn't want to leave Helen behind.
    I could see the other tenet head in the corner, True Grit playing on the screen. I lead Helen to the kitchen table and prepared two herbal teas, nice and warm, the way we like it. I began to tell Helen about what I had been working on. I explained how grateful I was for the support she'd given me over the long past several months. I had decided what I was going to do. I told her about the acadamity, describing the work they were doing. Helen seemed to shrink with every passing sentence. I told her I had been offered to teach there.
    Helen motioned with her hand, breaking my concentration. She began to tell be about a curse. She told me of a ghost, a tall man. The ghost seduces his victims into the life they want. He offers fame and fortune for a short period of time and then slowly destroys everything you ever loved. He make people forget about you until there is no one else. The contract is signed with the Devil for a term of 50 years. Your only goal is to find the one who can take your place.
    Suddenly, like a lightning bolt, a thought entered my mind. I turned to the tv confused where I was, the other tenet stood up and walked towards me. Was he walking or glided? Where his eyes alway dark and soulless? Helen voice was getting louder. I turned back to Helen, It looked as though I was staring directly at a mirror. The other tennet said to me, "Go and leave the Justice Building."
    There is a sign in the window, spaces for rent. No one looks at it and no one takes the offer. 50 years is a long time