The red house shuddered as Tony poured gasoline over the dining room’s bare warped floorboards. He felt its shiver and wondered if it was afraid.
The voices whispered, a tiny insect buzz that the drugs kept brushing away. Tony tried to ignore it, to remind himself that houses did not talk. The doctors had told him so–over and over again–for the last eight years.
He carried the red plastic gas can in to the kitchen. Light warm rain fell through a hole in the collapsed ceiling. Tony raised his face to the soft overcast sky, gray and as smooth as slate.
A rainbow sheen surfed the rain-glazed floor as he sloshed gas across the peeling linoleum. The red house groaned, a guttural vibration. Tony told himself was just the settling of the house’s rotten frame. (more…)