The Pripyat House
The rotted drywall slowly crumbled beneath the gentle breeze, a testimonial to the many winds it had withstood previously. In place of where delicate terracotta pot plants once stood, spewed shrubs of all kinds: weeds, clovers, dandelions, which in a way added a sense of life to the house - one that had not been apparent for decades. The splintered window sill now had very little signs of the blue paint it had originally been accented with, only pits of raw oak managed to survive, decorated with deep holes that had been curated carefully by a colony of termites.
The mounds of rubble on the floor had been sheltered with a beautiful compilation of dirt and dust, burying any suggestions of tile with a glistening silver blanket, one that seemed to be knitted together by the years in which it had lived to pass. Such rubble decorated every room, proving to be a strong fertiliser for all of the shrubbery which had moved in, manufacturing a kaleidoscope of green and grey, of smoke and of new life. Within the mess also rested mountains of ash which trickled up corners of the wall in cascading explosions of chaos, as if telling a story through hieroglyphics. Beneath the blankets of waste, however, survived one relic of love, of hope, in the house of such empty despair, one that had been wrapped by the blanket carefully, to protect it.
The broken glass of the frame had managed to not puncture the warm toned image which had lived inside of it, an overexposed grey-scale film photo of three magnificent creatures, parading around a grand piano that sat under the splintered window frame. These figures, each one smaller than the other, all stood on two legs except one that sat on the piano. It had long hair; it was light and straight, flawless. The small one that barely reached the legs of the piano had the same light hair as the one on the instrument- yet it seemed shorter, sitting just below its collarbone as it looked up at the tall one fondly. The tall creature was starkly different to the other two figures, its face was covered in ashy splotches which seemed to merge with the dark, unkempt care which grew from its head. The tall creature wore cotton clothes, thick and woolly to match the hat which it used to cover the dark mess on its head, it was looking at the figure on the piano, smiling.
The creatures seemed so incredibly infatuated with one another and the house in which they filled with their presence.
Suddenly the house was no longer torn apart or empty, yet filled with the aroma of warm bread that sat on the windowsill above the piano. The traditional piece that floated from the piano seemed to entangle itself with the comforting smell, and the tiled floor was not covered in dust but tiny wishing dolls made of straw and coloured with cheap dye. As her mother hummed along with her tune, the daughter bobbed her head, blonde streaks covering her eyes whilst she played with her dolls, whispering to them her pleas that her father would always return. Like clockwork, the father came home at precisely 6pm and the bread was cool and cut into six slices on the table where his daughter and wife sat patiently waiting for him before they each took their two designated slices. After dinner they all danced on the tiled floor until the sun set and the wishing dolls served their purpose. The daughter helped her mother water the pot plants beside the piano before going to bed with the sun and after tucking their daughter into her whimsical mosquito netted bed, the husband and wife went over his day at the power plant whilst she queued to receive her weekly flour allowance. She would tell him about how she cleaned the house three times over, brushing every corner clean and sweeping the floor spotless. It was tiring, yet they always remained happy.
On the back of the frame marked a date in ink as black as the photo: 1986, which does not seem nearly as long ago as the house reflected, as well as a small carving of the sickle and the hammer which the ash had seeped into. There were no wild shrubs within the photo, not a single spec of dust on the floor, and beautiful curtains folded around the corners of the panes of the window. The panes were nowhere to be seen now, the broken glass of the frame seemed to be the only remnant of glass within the house, and the only fabric visible was the great blanket of rubble on the floor. The window did not display much in the photo, a plain of open land and a few more houses perhaps, yet the window now led to great forests as far as the horizon, as if the trees had eaten away at all of the houses which once stood there.
The picture seemed to belong in the house, as a means of telling its story in a bizarre way, showing that once the house held more life than mites and weeds and stood taller than the rubble which consumed it. It will live beyond the fragile lifetime of the house, and one day, the figures will be eaten by the forest once again.
Written by (anonymous).