Cleaners

A house like this takes forever to clean. There’s lots of rooms. So many nooks and crannies, and everywhere full of old things. Knick knacks. Books. Gadgets, gizmos, and antiques.

Only one room is almost empty. Save for a desk in the middle of the floor, there is nothing there. No carpets even, and no shelves. Just a wooden floor, and four straight walls.

Nothing on the desk itself.

So why is it that room always eats up the most time when cleaning this house?

They pay well, the owners of the house. They do compensate more than fairly for the amount of time my crew and I spend giving their house a twice monthly scrub from top to bottom.

That is not the issue.

I love having the luxury to not have to rush a job. It is so rare these days to get to take the time to do things right.

It is never all that satisfying to have to do things so-so. Leaving places only almost clean, because people do not appreciate a job well done anymore. Not enough to pay for it, anyway.

But this house? These people? They pay.

And we deliver.

Everything spick and span, spotless!

Only that one room troubles me. How many hours it takes to sweep and wash the floors. Wipe the walls, the windows, and that empty desk.

It makes no sense. No sense at all.

It is as if time works different in that room. Like the floors stretch forever and everything becomes so much bigger than it can be.

We always do that room last, because once we are done there, I am exhausted. And so is everyone else.

I have begun to dread entering into the near emptiness of that room…

“Thank you,” says the gray haired old man who owns the house together with his more eccentric, rainbow-haired old husband. “Same time two weeks from now?”

“Yes. Of course,” I hear myself reply with a wide smile once again, though I’ve begun to wish I found the strength to say no. Thank you for this job, but enough is enough, and that one room… “We will see you then.”

“Good. Good,” replies the man, and shows us out.

We go home.

None of us has energy for anything but sleep this weekend. We have learned to not make plans.

“They won’t last much longer, you know,” says a rainbow haired old wizard to his husband, a gray haired mage.

“Yes. I do know,” he sighs. “All the signs are there… Pity. They have done such a good job with the place.”

“We will have to start looking for yet another company. Always such a bore.”

The Great House Spider

The Great House Spider did everything it could to keep the people of the House happy.

No easy task, as the people all detested one another.

These humans were supposed to be a family. A father, a mother, the mother’s mother, a paternal uncle, and four children. With some slightly more distant relatives thrown in due to their financial problems.

Cousins. A few times removed.

(But alas, they always somehow or other managed to find their way back…)

Yet these people all behaved as if they were each others’ bitterest mortal enemies. Even the most dependent ones.

No family feeling at all. No love lost between them.

Occasional alliances against someone else only.

The Great House Spider could not comprehend why these humans would argue and bicker and throw fists over something as trivial as who had touched someone else’s tangerine. Not when there were a hundred more tangerines right there on a side table so very close to where they sat!

The Great House Spider could easily understand killing and eating one’s own kind. But not this stupid prolonged, year after year, animosity and conflict over every little thing!

To make matters worse, the Great House Spider had no one else to confide in regarding its trouble with the humans of the Great House but its neighboring Small House Spider. And the Small House Spider did not understand the Great House Spider’s difficulties at all!

The Small House Spider’s own human family was kind and caring and loving and gentle and what-have you wonderful nice. They got along perfectly!

So all the Small House Spider could say was “Give it time,” and “I’m sure they will be fine if you just feed them well.”

As if the Great House Spider hadn’t been offering them every delicacy in the human world every two hours for years!

“Maybe that’s the problem,” suggested the Small House Spider. “Perhaps you give them too many options.” The Small House Spider had noticed that humans in general seem to find too great a selection almost as stressful as a lack of things. “Certainly not quite as stressful, but stressful nonetheless.”

So the Great House Spider tried offering fewer things. This led to a fight.

The Great House Spider tried feeding them a little less frequently. It made them fight.

The Great House Spider tested different cuisines from different parts of the world. And it all just got them fighting and arguing and throwing things at each other’s heads!

The Great House Spider was very near its wits’ end.

“I swear,” said the Great House Spider to the Small House Spider when they met again. “If they fight just one more time this week, I will evict them! I do not care how much that is frowned upon by the Society of House Spiders. I will! I swear!”

The Great House Spider scurried off in a grand huff.

The Small House Spider tut tutted, and watched the Great House Spider leave. Then remarked to a passing dragonfly just how grateful it was for its own human family being so very lovely. Ever so lovely indeed.

Two weeks later, disaster struck.

Now it was the Small House Spider’s turn to seek understanding and solace from the Great House Spider. They were both of them almost equally in shock.

The father of the family that lived in the Small House had suddenly murdered his whole family! All except little Emily.

That poor, sweet girl survived.

The father had taken his own life as well. So at least dear little Emily would be spared the horror of having to go to the CourtHouse Spider and watch her own father be sentenced to death for his crimes. For the murder of her own darling mother and all six of her siblings too.

The Great House Spider shook, and empathised. But secretly the Great House Spider was just a little bit pleased that Small House Spider’s human family was not quite so perfect after all. And when the Small House Spider cried out “How could this be??!” it almost wanted to suggest that perhaps the Small House Spider had simply not fed them well enough.

Home

The house had grown around them. Every day, new closets, new cupboards, new rooms.

Filling it up with furniture was a neverending task. With carpets, rugs and curtains. Towels in the bathrooms, and knick knacks on various surfaces. Art upon the walls.

First it was the children’s art. They’d make more every day, every chance they got. And everything always found a space on a wall or on the door of a fridge.

How many fridges did they have now? How many kitchens in the house? Galley kitchens, L kitchens, U kitchens. Closed kitchen doors and open plans. Bars. Butler’s pantries too. Of course.

But no one ever counts how many.

The house keeps growing so fast.

The art had long since become the work of paid artists. Sculptors, painters, graphic artists, calligraphers, photographers, illustrators, mosaic makers, weavers, knitters, rope tyers, what have yous… There were dancers in the Temples. Several groups of dancers always training and performing in the studios and on the stages of the house as well. Several acting troupes, too.

It was always growing. So much in the house.

So much.

In their home.

The children too had grown, and met the loves of their own lives.

Three of the four children found their partners in the house. Students from the libraries. Actors and dancers performing. A teacher from the school long after graduation.

One daughter grew up to leave the house. Travelled the world, and returned home with a wife from somewhere else.

She made herself right at home. And the house reflected her. Added another layer of tastes and traditions to the ones already existing.

Churches added to the temples they already had.

An atheist corner. In honor of her father. Though she did not always agree with his views of the world.

The house was huge. Had become so much bigger than the world outside.

The mother, now a grandmother, with two great grandchildren on the way, loved the house, and everyone therein. Family, or not. Everyone was blessed with her love.

Well, everyone but the few who had been kicked out over the years. Some bad people always had to try to make their way in. Just good that none of them succeeded in becoming family. At least, not for very long.

That one man… He was buried somewhere in the house. A neglected and forgotten corner. The only such in the house.

The mother loved the house and everyone therein except for him. And he was best forgotten.

Her favorite room lately had been an indoor garden. One that grew the spices with which she cooked. The poisons with which she killed.

She would be here for the great grandchildren’s birth. But the aches and the pains in her frail bones now… The tiredness… She might not stay all that much longer after that.

No! What was she thinking?! Of course she would stay!

As long as she possibly could.

Pride

“Well, whaddaya know…” says Craydel. He is lying on a thick rug, leaning on an elbow, and sips some more hard tea.

Damar is lounging in a chair near the rug. He pulls a long puff of smoke from what looks like a Cuban cigar, but most certainly is not. Not any kind of tobacco at all. “What?”

“There’s a whole pride of lions just fell through the roof into our kitchen,” Craydel points with a finger of his free hand. The one that is not holding the huge glass of hard tea. Which he sips again.

“Did it now?” says Damar, and turns their head towards where the finger points. “Ah, yes… So I see. It did.”

Damar pulls another long puff of smoke. Is quiet for a while, and then she says “Do you suppose we ought to leave the house, perhaps? What with them being lions, and all..?”

Craydel tries very hard to think. He even scrunches his brows in the effort. Comes to some sort of a conclusionish thing. “I don’t think they are man-eating ones… I think they are Okay.”

“Oh… Good,” says Damar. “I am not entirely sure that I could outrun a lion if such a thing were necessary. Let alone a whole pride of them.”

The two continue smoking and drinking in silence for a while. The lions move around in the house.

Suddenly Damar speaks again. “They may not be man-eating lions, but I believe that I very well might be.”

“A lion?” Craydel is confused.

“A man eater,” Damar grins. “I am feeling hungry for your flesh. Your skin and bone.”

“Oooh…” says Craydel. “Sounds fun.”

Damar takes one last puff, and then puts their cigar on a magnificent looking ashtray. He gets down from the chair onto her knees on the rug. Approaches Craydel. Growls.

A male lion growls as well.

“O oh… Buahaha!” laughs Craydel, and Damar joins his laughter.

The two humans laugh and giggle helplessly prone on the rug. Kiss in between their giggles.

The lions look at each other. Then seek a way out of the house, and away from these crazy humans. Thank goodness a door is open.

It’s a beautiful house. Built into the land. With a garden on its roof that perhaps was made not quite strong enough.

An entire lion pride can be heavy.

Monkey Post

Dear Postmaster Monkey…

No… Scratch that. She is female, and therefore not a master, which is male… Start again. 

Dear Postmistress Monkey, Mrs, 

I have taken upon myself the task of writing this letter to You, as it has become incumbent upon me to let you know that I, and several of my peers, most humbly beg to differ with your stated opinions upon the matter of the significance of the Post being daily delivered to our boxes. Indeed, the most pivotal thing when it comes to the Post is not, as you would claim, the timely delivery of said Post itself, but as our decades-long experience has taught us, the most important thing about Post is actually the reactions and the replies of the recipients of that Post.

Yours, respectfully, etc etc,

         Mr. Monkey

Some few weeks later a reply received from elsewhere in the house.

Dear Mr. Monkey,

Shut up and do as you are told.

       Postmaster Monkey, Ms

Oh, dear, oh, dear… How can she call herself a master? I see that I shall have to be writing her another letter explaining English… 

Drawer

The guy who owns a truck and is helping me to move knows the house I just bought.

“Did they tell you about the Drawer?” he asks.

“What drawer?” Listening to him for the past half hour, it’s clear the realtors didn’t tell me much of anything. What is less clear is whether they themselves knew all of this fascinating history of the house.

“The Drawer of Things. It’s in that house. Not always in the same place, but always somewhere in the house.”

“What is this Drawer of Things then?”

“It calls in Things. Creatures from other Realms. That sort of Things.”

“Is it a very big drawer? I mean… I really don’t feel like dealing with a lot of big Things from other Realms right now.”

“Well… That rather depends on which drawer it is at a given moment. But mostly just a pretty regular size Drawer, I should think.” He falls silent for a bit, then continues. “Not that it isn’t the small ones you really ought to be looking out for, mind you. Them little Things can do an awful lot of damage for their size…”

“I’m sure they can. But I do believe I’m better equipped to handle small ones at the moment anyway.”

“If you say so,” he says.

“So I say,” I say.

He says nothing else as we are now pulling into my house’s driveway. 

It’s a real pretty old house. Lots of beautiful details both indoors and out. Plenty of built in drawers too. In all sorts of unexpected places. 

A few of my friends laughed when they heard I’d bought a house that’s painted pink. Called it girly. I love the color, though. Suits the place absolutely perfect. And anyways… I’ve never been as afraid of things considered girly or feminine as they are.

We get out of the truck, and start unloading. We carry my things inside, and I tell him where to put what.

It’s going to be a while before I’ve unpacked all the boxes, but at least everything is already pretty much in the right rooms.

The last box in the truck contains my traps. From what he told me, I’m going to need them.

“So… Where in the house do you suppose that Drawer of Things is right now?” I ask as we carry that last box in.

“Could be anywhere,” he replies, so no help there.

I guess I’ll just spread the traps all over the house, and see which one works. Concentrate the traps near that one then.

All the boxes and all my furniture are in. I pay the guy for the gas, plus a little bit for his trouble, in spite of his protests. I insist. Say goodbye after just a couple of beers. Lock the doors behind him.

I think he understands that this drinking together will not be becoming a habit. I hope so, anyway.

He’s cute and all. But at the moment I’m not looking for anything other than the help moving. I know I told him so from the start, but he still seemed a little… hopeful there for a bit.

Anyhows, once he’s gone, I make the house habitable as fast as I can. Sheets in the bed, and cooking things in the kitchen. Soaps and towels in the bathroom.

I feel at home already.

Time to set the traps.

Anyone who isn’t in the know would wonder what the heck I’m doing. They look like smallish stones. Crystals, if you’re into those. Four in each trap.

I spread them around. A couple of them in every room of the house except my bedroom. The bedroom I seal by other means. Then I eat a sandwich, and go to bed.

Wake up at 3.33 AM to the sound of a trap going off. Smile and go back to sleep.

Wake up again at 3.44 and 3.55. Then all the rest of the traps go off in quick succession between 4 o’clock and 4.15 AM. I am done sleeping.

I’d almost forgot the guy said the Drawer of Things isn’t always in the same place inside the house…

It seems there’s a lot of Things coming through tonight. When one gets trapped, the rest try a different route.

There’s no more traps going off now. But whether that’s because there’s no more Things, or because I ran out of traps, I don’t know.

I consider waiting until proper daylight before going out to look. Even though I know I won’t be able to sleep another wink, I’d quite like to wait till then. There’s no saying how many Things there are. So sunlight would be good. It would be real good… But like the truck guy said, them little Things can do an awful lot of damage for their size.

I hear a crash. Decision made. I’m going.

Everything looks normal when I step out of the shielded bedroom in my pajama pants. It’s warm enough that I don’t even think about donning a robe, or the pajama’s shirt.

I walk barefoot to the nearest trap. Don’t see anything at first, but then the darkness shifts.

It’s a Thing, all right. A Thing from another Realm. A Thing with black scales and black feathers, and an awful lot of arms with claws. Pointed ears. Sharp teeth too, I see when it screeches at me angry.

It’s a young Thing. But the kind of a youngling Thing that… That’s weird, though… From what the guy with the truck said, I’d’ve expected the kind of Things that destroy belongings, clothes, furniture. Not the kind that eats people.

Alarmed, I look around in the darkness of the room. On a hunch I speak some words that switch the lights on everywhere in the house.

I was right. Was really, really hoping to be wrong…

There’s hundreds of small Things everywhere I look. And I do think every last one of them is hungry.

I run down the stairs. They chase me. A few manage to scratch and bite me. I grab them and toss them off me as I run.

There’s too many in the foyer. I can’t reach the front door.

I swerve to the kitchen, towards the back entrance, but I’m surrounded before I’m at the door.

The truck guy comes in swinging something that makes a sound this breed of Thing younglings hate. They scatter away.

I sag with relief.

“You Okay?” he asks.

“Yeah… I’m fine… Yeah… Just a couple of tiny bites and scratches on me…” I check the damage. “Nothing bad… I’m glad you came…”

Too late I realize “How’d you get in the house?”

He sniffs. He is awfully close. “Through a Drawer. Of course.”

I try to run, but he grabs hold of an arm. I’m lucky, though. He’s greedy. Bites it right off.

That leaves the rest of me free. 

Shock keeps me from feeling the worst if it, I guess. Adrenaline… Survival instinct… Who cares what it is that makes me able to run to the last box that was brought in? All that matters is that I do, and that my traps are not the only thing that I had in there.

The truck guy is too busy munching on my arm to realize just how screwed he and his younglings are…

I was hoping not to run into any big Things, because Fuck, I hate having to use this Device. It always leaves me so drained. And it’s only been three weeks since I had to use it on my romantic partner of the past two years, who finally turned out to be a Thing. But I don’t hesitate to use it now.

I lift the shiny metallic Device from the box. Glad it’s not too big. Or too heavy. Glad it can be easily operated with just my left hand.

“Hey!” I shout at the Thing. I want it to know what’s coming.

“Noooo!” he shouts with his mouth all Red from my blood.

I activate the Device.

The whole house shrinks miniscule and grows humongous all at once. Blinks. Returns to normal.

All Things of all sizes have been either obliterated, or returned to their own Realms. I really do not care which. All Drawers of Things have been closed. 

I collapse to the floor. Consider passing out. But if I let myself do that, I’ll be forever short of one arm.

I breathe. Shake my head to overcome the temptation to faint. Crawl on all threes to my jacket in the foyer. Do my best not to pass out as I stand up to get something out of my jacket pocket.

It’s the last Green Pill in the bottle. I’m going to have to go acquire more of them after this. Tomorrow night, I guess… But so glad I still have this one.

I swallow the Green Pill without water. Shudder, and sit down. Brace myself for the pain.

I still scream as my arm grows back. Hardly notice when the cuts and bites heal. I am whole and healthy again.

But exhausted.

I sleep a few hours right there on the foyer floor. Wake up still damnably drained. Get up anyway. Head for the kitchen, and have a huge bowl of real sugary marshmallow cereals for breakfast.

Spend the rest of the day on the sofa drifting in and out of sleep. Munching on some more cereals from time to time.

Come nightfall it’s time to get up. Shower. Dress up in my fanciest suit and tie. Pack five guns, and several knives. Speak the words, and step through a Doorway.

Go get my Pills.

Blue Bird

“Paul! Come quick! You have to see this!” Priscilla shouts.

“What is it?” Paul asks as he walks unhurriedly into the room his wife is in.

“There’s a blue bird flying above the house where the Langcods moved out of three months ago… Weird that it hasn’t sold yet.”

“So? Blue jays are nothing rare in these parts.”

“It’s not a blue jay. And it’s huge. Like, almost a third of the size of the house itself.”

“What?” he laughs and finally looks out the window too. “No way… It really is.”

“Told you you should see this,” says Priscilla smugly.

“Is it a projection of some kind?” Paul suggests.

“No. It’s not,” Priscilla says. “I’ve been looking at it long enough. There’s no projection could fly the way that bird does. And neither could anything mechanical. See, I thought of that myself.”

Paul watches the bird, incredulous. Finally he says “We have to go look at it closer… That we do. Got to see it real close up. Figure out what it is.”

“Are you sure it’s safe, though, Paul? It’s a really huge bird that one is…”

“Yes, I’m sure it’s safe,” says Paul. “It’s some kind of a trick anyway. There’s no bird in this world is that big. We just have to go figure out how it’s done.”

And with that, it’s decided. Out the door they go and towards the Langcods’ old place.

The bird keeps circling in the air above the house. Opening its beak rather frequently.

“What’s it doing?” says Priscilla.

“Catching flies, by the looks of it,” says Paul. “Though how much food little flies would be for a bird that size, I dunno. It would have to eat a million.”

“Either that, or a few really big ones,” Priscilla shudders. “As big as the bird itself.”

“Not as big as itself, you silly,” Paul slaps Priscilla’s arm real lightly and playfully, though he, too, is uncomfortable with the idea of flies that big. “How would it swallow anything its own size?”

“I meant in proportion to it,” Priscilla sniffs. “Those would still be some pretty big flies, they would.”

Paul’s turn to shudder a little bit. He really hates the thought of big flies.

They are at the house now. Standing in its yard, looking up.

“Where’d the bird go?” Paul asks just as it lands right next to them with a thud.

“Oh, my Lord, Paul, it scared me,” says Priscilla. “It’s a real bird, all right, just like I told you. See. You believe me now?”

Paul just stares at the bird. It’s feet. It’s grayer belly. The beautiful blue feathers on its back, its wings, its tail, and head. The mask of black feathers around its eyes.

The bird looks right back at them. Fans its tail and half spreads its wings.

“Why’s it doing that?” Priscilla asks.

“I don’t know,” says Paul, and backs up a bit.

The bird suddenly attacks. It catches them both in its beak, as if they were worms or insect larvae. It takes them inside the house.

In the living room, there’s a big nest, with another bird, a gray one, sitting on some eggs.

The blue bird drops both Priscilla and Paul right in front of the gray one. It eats Paul first. 

Just before it swallows her too, Priscilla has time to see the eggs are hatching.

The little baby hatchling looks just like the Langcods’ daughter did. What was her first name?  – Myiagra.

Priscilla is eaten by the gray bird before it even occurs to her to wonder just what the Langcods are, and what exactly may be happening wherever the Langcods moved to next.

Samovar

The samovar is old. Who uses one of those to heat their water now? Who drinks their tea with jam?

She is ancient. Refuses to zap a flavored herbal at the press of a button.

Goes through trouble to make her tea with jam.

The trouble of raising her berries in the backyard. Boiling them at an actual fire. Making jam.

The trouble of heating water in an old, old samovar. Steeping leaves.

She says it tastes so much better that way.

Not something that the kids understand, but there is one. A boy that smiles and nods and… Actually tastes the difference it all makes.

He’s the young man who lives here when she’s gone.

Strange… finding yourself growing berries, steeping tea. When all he ever wanted was the house.

House on Bradford Street

There’s a House on Bradford Street. You wouldn’t know by looking at it: it looks like any other. There’s a House on Bradford Street that is the address of Merfolk.

That is the name written on the letterbox. But while you might assume it is only a funny surname, it is actually the name of the whole species that receives their post right there.

It is the honor of the Woman of the House here to sort through all the post, and receive all the deliveries. 

She throws out the useless junk, like bills. Merfolk never pay any such, except by Magic.

She keeps and seals by Magic the packages and deliveries, the newspapers, letters, the postcards and the adverts all waterproof. Taking especial care with the adverts.

What some humans know as “junk mail” is very much coveted by Merfolk. It tells them far more of the values of humankind than any other form of communication.

Lets them know what to buy as well. You see, so long as it’s not electronics, Merfolk are quite fond of human things.

Electricity upsets them. Reminds them too much of some eels that rebelled against the King quite a long time ago, and were never spoken of since. But sofas and chairs and curtains, statues and trinkets and jewelry, plastic plants! Merfolk cannot get enough of them.

Oh, and fashion. Human fashions are so fascinating, and so fast changing!

Pants are obviously Out. Always. But the lengths of the skirts and the dresses and the gowns and the kilts go up and down. And the prints and the patterns and the sequins and the cuts and the what have yous of human imagination seem to be endless.

So the Woman of the House sorts and seals the post. And the Man of the House keeps up appearances for the humans of the world.

He grows legs each morning and goes out to work at some boring place. And to buy groceries on the weekend together with the Woman of the House.

Just how all that water stays inside the House and does not leak out when the door is opened, and the Man of the House steps through, or the Woman of the House receives deliveries, no human knows. By Magic, of course, but how that particular Magic works is actually a mystery to almost all Merfolk too.

Suffice to say, the water forms a wall a little ways inside the house, and mostly the Man of the House is the only one passing through. The Woman of the House signing for deliveries at the door of the House, and not going out at all.

Except for their weekly groceries. And on Date Night, when the Woman of the House must be seen by the neighbors too, lest they wonder too much and grow worried about her wellbeing.

A weekly show of how well she is ought to be enough to keep tongues from wagging. And her skimpy dresses on Date Night make amply clear that she hides no bruises anywhere on her beautiful body.

The slightly funny way she walks upon her gorgeous legs has the neighbors thinking there must be something wrong with her health, poor thing. That must be the reason why she stays so much in the House. But neither the Man not the Woman of the House seem at all willing to discuss the matter. They both put on a brave face, and in any case, one does not like to gossip, after all.

But the real reason the Woman of the House stays inside the House receiving packages, deliveries and the post is because that is her job. A Most Honorable Position, indeed, and one that she has worked hard to prove herself capable of holding. 

She’s damned if she’s ever going to let one single delivery be missed by her. Oh, no! For she is not like the previous Woman of the House who became so blinded by the Temptations of the World that she was out of the House one day when a letter arrived to the King!

That Woman of the House soon found herself out of a job, and living in the freezing waters of Antarctica. This Woman of the House is determined to do so much better than her.

Once the post is sorted, the packages and deliveries received, and everything is waterproof sealed, the Children of the House, whom no human knows exist, take on the task of delivering things to their rightful recipients. Wherever in the oceans and the seas of this world a recipient lives, the Children of the House deliver.

No conditions can ever stop the Children of the House from arriving the very same day the Woman of the House has received and sealed the post, the delivery, or the package. Even the roughest of seas, or the hardest of ice will be passed through.

The portals are always opening and closing in the House, and in the seas. Swimming varying distance is still required, both inside the House and in the seas and oceans.

The Children of the House must be strong. But they always deliver as promised. So long as the Woman of the House has done her part.

And this Woman of the House always does.

The Man of the House has it so much easier. But also so much more boring.

He sometimes wishes he was still a Child of the House, like he was in his younger days. Oh, the swims that he would take back then… But he injured himself on the last of his deliveries, and was quite lucky to receive the post of the Man of the House.

No matter how dreadfully boring it is to do a human job, day after day, year after year, at least he gets to take the Woman of the House to the movies and out to dinner every week! Now that is certainly something to boast about to his friends.

Friends whom he rarely sees. Friends in the oceans. His friends in the seas…

If he sometimes drinks too much, this Man of the House, too much of those human drinks in the pubs, well who can blame him? Life on land can be hard for someone used to swimming.

The Woman of the House is quite fond of this Man of the House. She sees no reason to complain, and to have him replaced. Not so long as he performs his duties in spite of his drinking.

The moment he fails to step out of the door in the morning will be his undoing, of course. The Woman of the House will not tolerate a single sick day due to drink.

Wobbly swimming, fine. Sentimental singing, quite nice in the beautiful voice of the Man of the House.

Make no mistake, had his singing been bad, the Man of the House would have been out of there a long time ago already. But he was blessed with a beautiful timber to his baritone.

The Woman of the House quite loves the songs of the Man of the House. And so they live in harmony inside the House.

The Merfolk receive their post and their packages, and all their things are delivered in a wonderfully timely fashion, except for delays on the human side of things, of course. But for those, everyone knows better than to blame the Woman of the House.

Humans are rather imperfect, after all. Almost as bad as… Well… One does not like to speak of the Sweet Water Folk. So we best leave it at that.

Songbirds

A bird is perching atop a chandelier. A really pretty bird, but how did it get in the house?

All the doors and windows have been closed since yesterday evening’s storm. I’m the first one awake, as usual, so no one will have opened any yet.

Suddenly the bird starts singing. All the birds in the house start singing. I find there is one in every room. Twelve rooms in this house.

Their song is beautiful. But strange.

The hairs upon my arms raise as I listen to the birds’ singing. I get goosebumps all over.

Tears roll down my face.

The others wake, and the birds are gone. But they were here!

I know the birds were here, and they were real.

No one believes me. They think I was still dreaming, but I did not dream that song.

I whistle their melody. By lunchtime, we all are whistling their melody. All twelve of us. One in every room.

It never stops.