Hello, everyone.
This is Ria with a quick note.
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Now on to the show.
This is ria.
Welcome to Little Stories for Tiny People.
Our story today is perfect for bedtime.
It has a slow pace and a heartfelt theme.
And its main character doesn't really move a whole lot.
So settle in beneath your weighted blanket and close your eyes.
And listen to our tale.
I don't know if you'll be able to stay awake until the end, but you won't regret it if you do.
It's called The Story of a House.
Take it away, Ulrich.
Remember, there are no pictures.
You can imagine the pictures you might You can imagine them however you want.
Okay, let's go!
This is the story of a house.
You may know this house, not this exact house, but you likely know of a house just like this one.
Once I describe it to you, you might turn to the person next to you and nod knowingly, saying I do know that house.
There's one in nearly every place that has houses.
Most of the other houses on the block are tidy.
If there's a patch of grass out front, it's trimmed once in a while.
If there are trees, they grow leaves in the springtime.
At 4 a.m., there is usually a car tucked against the curb or a motorcycle in the shed.
When it comes to most houses, there is a clear separation between the house and the flora and fauna surrounding it.
If there are animals inside these houses, they were invited there by people.
Perhaps most importantly, nearly every other house, even if the grass is not trimmed or the tree out front does not spring leaves, nearly every other house shows signs of serving the purpose that all houses aim to serve providing a home for people.
But this house, the one our story follows, has none of those characteristics.
It sits away back from the street at the end of a long driveway, itself broken and worn away in places.
The grass surrounding the house has long since given way to a meadow.
An entire ecosystem unto itself.
The lone tree in the yard died years ago, but there's no one within striking distance to worry each time a storm rambles through.
Spindly arms of English ivy creep upwards over its edifice as if perpetually pulling it into an earthly embrace.
There is no clear distinction between the house and its environs at all.
There is a hole in one of its sides, where the wood rotted, through which a shrub pokes.
An upper window pane is missing, and bats have taken up residence.
The basement is home to innumerable creatures and is the stage for unceasing dramas starring rats mice, snakes and the occasional frog.
The house is an eyesore, a blight on an otherwise unremarkable landscape.
It's the kind of house rumored to be haunted.
The kind bored teenagers dare one another to approach, then run away from, giggling.
But mostly, it's the kind of place everyone ignores.
The house sighs under its own weight.
It flinches each time someone tosses an empty can through a window.
It sleeps during the day. and wakes at night when the bats are up and shuffling around.
It watches the moon.
It remembers a different life.
It wasn't always this way.
No house ever begins as a falling down mess.
They all begin, each one as a dream, a promise.
A newly built house is concrete evidence of hope.
Each one is built with a clear purpose.
None of them ever expect to end up like this.
Every single one of these sad decrepit houses, the ones you know and the ones I know, all started out brand new.
So let us remember that as we visit this house of ours on a very particular day in early spring.
It is the middle of a crisp, sunny afternoon, and the house is asleep.
Upstairs, in the attic, the bats are asleep.
Down below, in the basement, the mice are asleep within the walls.
The house is on a quiet street and, since it is still early in spring, there are no sounds of lawnmowers or any of those other things people get up to as the weather warms.
It is quiet until the house wakens to the sound of voices on the porch.
Why haven't they put it on the market before now?
Eh.
I think they moved out of state a while back and I guess it just didn't seem to be worth the trouble.
It won't get much for it of course.
The person presses a steel-toed boot downward, testing the porch.
We'll be lucky if this porch doesn't collapse with us on it.
The house is fully awake now.
Feeling the heat of embarrassment creep up its ivy.
The house shudders and a loud creaking sound emanates from the porch.
See what I mean?
Both men laugh as if it's some big joke.
They peer into the house's windows, and she wishes they were even grimier than they are.
The house creaks. cringes, imagining what they can see through the window.
The living room with that big hole in one of the walls.
The chandelier that hangs crookedly from the ceiling.
The forgotten pieces of furniture that act as a playground for woodland creatures.
At least the stench can't travel through the glass.
Check out that wallpaper.
It's all too much.
The house considers waking the bats.
Maybe they'd fly out, scaring the people away.
Maybe the house could... Oh, good.
The people are leaving.
A sad thought comes to the house.
Just looking through the window was enough to make them leave.
But the house shakes off the grief that comes with that thought and replaces it with relief.
The people are down the front path.
Alright, take care now.
See ya.
The house sighs.
The porch sighs too.
The bats seem to stir for a moment in the upstairs room, then settle.
The house drifts back to sleep as the sun is still high in the sky.
And being awake at this hour makes her think of things she wished to forget.
The house has a thought as she settles into the quiet.
They are gone now, and they will never come back.
But the people do come back.
A week later, the house is asleep in the middle of the day.
This time it wakens to the sound of people at the rear of the house.
This is new.
The house is used to teenagers sneaking around the front, peeking into the windows and being scared off by the bats.
No one ventures out back.
But here are these same people again, doing just that.
They approach.
The shed.
Not the shed, the house thinks, her shutters rattling.
The house has no idea what they'll find back there.
There could be anything in the shed.
The man with the steel-toed boots pulls at the shed door.
It is warped from years of disuse, and it catches against the ground.
It's to all the rains and the humidity over the years that twisted the shed door so that its angles are not quite square.
The man plants his feet firmly against the ground and pulls the door with greater force.
It catches again, and then it opens.
No.
Oh, wow.
There's a mower in here.
I think it's got to be like six years old.
Oh, I know that model.
Must have been top of the line when it was new.
It was, the house thinks, in spite of herself.
A memory of the mower, brand new, comes to her in a flash.
Why are these people doing this?
Stirring up things that should be left to the past.
After traipsing around the property, the people leave.
This time, the house has a bad feeling.
They will return.
She settles into an uneasy sleep.
The house sleeps fitfully for a few weeks on tenderhooks, expecting the people to come back.
But after several weeks of quiet...
She slips deeper into a troubled slumber.
Late spring comes, bringing heat and damp.
The animals in the house are sluggish.
The sounds of lawnmowers and the buzzing of weed whackers come and go.
But it is the sound of a mallet hitting wood that finally jostles the house from its stupor.
Her shutters rattle as she ascends from the depths of sleep.
The animals in the house stir and turn over.
The sound stops for a moment, and the house begins to doze once more.
But then, the sound comes again.
The house flinches.
She gazes out her front windows.
She sees a man, one of the people who visited her, hammering a sign into the ground.
A
For sale sign.
What happens next happens swiftly.
The sound, so familiar, so lodged in her frame, knocks the house back in time.
Decades shrink to nothing as the house's long memory carries her back, far back, to when another mallet hit another for sale sign into place when she was just a few days old.
There is so much more to this story.
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And thank you as always for listening in.
