[Original: Drabble] "On the Corner" [G]
Title: On the Corner
Prompt: writerverse challenge #13 weekly quick fic #7 prompts ‘The house on the corner had been empty for twenty years’ & ‘hunger’
Bonus: over 500 words
Word Count: 559
Rating: G
Original/Fandom: original
Pairings: John/Maya
Summary: The house on the corner was empty - until it wasn’t.
Note(s): originally posted to the writerverse wv_library
On the Corner
The house on the corner had been empty for twenty years.
It had been a grand house once, nothing lavish or opulent, but built well with good materials. It sat back from the two roads, behind a stone-and-wrought iron fence and overgrown hedges, only just visible at all through the tall trees that grew around it.
I had never seen more than these few glimpses, but I knew every inch of that house. The blueprints were included in a turn-of-the-twentieth-century history of the house that I had found in the library and read cover to cover, when I was barely bigger than the thick, leather-bound book. I had read it a dozen times before Miss Sara, the children’s librarian, had offered to help me look up more information on the library’s brand new computer station.
The man who had built the house, a wealthy industrialist, had had no children, and when he died, it had passed to a cousin, who lived far away and had never set in it. So, the house had sat empty for two decades, slowly worn down by the wind and rain, dark and empty.
Until one day, it wasn’t.
I only had one class on Wednesdays - I was in graduate school at the local college, having gotten a degree in history and now working on my master’s- and on my way back into town, I always made sure to ride my bike past the house on the corner. I had spotted the moving van parked on the street, but I skidded to a halt at the sight of the iron gate standing open. I don’t know how long I stood there, staring up at the house, when the door opened and a young woman came jogging out.
She was about my age, wearing worn blue jeans and a faded t-shirt that read US Marines, dark hair pulled back into a sleek French braid. “Can I help you?” she asked.
“Sorry,” I said, blinking her face into focus. “Sorry, I just - do you live here?”
The woman smiled. “Yeah. Used to belong to some crazy uncle of my dad’s but I guess it’s mine now. You live around here?”
“Yeah.” I fumbled off my bike, leaning it against the wall, and suppressed a shudder as I crossed through the gate. “I’m John, I live two streets down, on Maple.”
“Maya.” She shook my hand, her grip firm. “Hey, this is kinda forward, but… you got time to help a girl move into an abandoned house?”
As it turned out, I did.
I had a lot of time after that, to help move furniture and unpack boxes, to resurface woodwork and paint walls, to pull weeds and plant flowers. Before I knew it, I was spending more time at Maya’s than at my own, and by the time I worked up the courage to show her the leather-bound history of her house I had finally been given my Miss Sara, I had seen in person everything I’d always read about.
She touched the cover, gently, then smiled teasingly. “You like the house better than me, don’t you?”
“No,” I said, completely serious.
The house on the corner had been empty for twenty years. But when Maya kissed me, in the warm sunshine of the front parlor, I knew we’d do our best to fill it again.
THE END
Current Mood:
crazy
Prompt: writerverse challenge #13 weekly quick fic #7 prompts ‘The house on the corner had been empty for twenty years’ & ‘hunger’
Bonus: over 500 words
Word Count: 559
Rating: G
Original/Fandom: original
Pairings: John/Maya
Summary: The house on the corner was empty - until it wasn’t.
Note(s): originally posted to the writerverse wv_library
On the Corner
The house on the corner had been empty for twenty years.
It had been a grand house once, nothing lavish or opulent, but built well with good materials. It sat back from the two roads, behind a stone-and-wrought iron fence and overgrown hedges, only just visible at all through the tall trees that grew around it.
I had never seen more than these few glimpses, but I knew every inch of that house. The blueprints were included in a turn-of-the-twentieth-century history of the house that I had found in the library and read cover to cover, when I was barely bigger than the thick, leather-bound book. I had read it a dozen times before Miss Sara, the children’s librarian, had offered to help me look up more information on the library’s brand new computer station.
The man who had built the house, a wealthy industrialist, had had no children, and when he died, it had passed to a cousin, who lived far away and had never set in it. So, the house had sat empty for two decades, slowly worn down by the wind and rain, dark and empty.
Until one day, it wasn’t.
I only had one class on Wednesdays - I was in graduate school at the local college, having gotten a degree in history and now working on my master’s- and on my way back into town, I always made sure to ride my bike past the house on the corner. I had spotted the moving van parked on the street, but I skidded to a halt at the sight of the iron gate standing open. I don’t know how long I stood there, staring up at the house, when the door opened and a young woman came jogging out.
She was about my age, wearing worn blue jeans and a faded t-shirt that read US Marines, dark hair pulled back into a sleek French braid. “Can I help you?” she asked.
“Sorry,” I said, blinking her face into focus. “Sorry, I just - do you live here?”
The woman smiled. “Yeah. Used to belong to some crazy uncle of my dad’s but I guess it’s mine now. You live around here?”
“Yeah.” I fumbled off my bike, leaning it against the wall, and suppressed a shudder as I crossed through the gate. “I’m John, I live two streets down, on Maple.”
“Maya.” She shook my hand, her grip firm. “Hey, this is kinda forward, but… you got time to help a girl move into an abandoned house?”
As it turned out, I did.
I had a lot of time after that, to help move furniture and unpack boxes, to resurface woodwork and paint walls, to pull weeds and plant flowers. Before I knew it, I was spending more time at Maya’s than at my own, and by the time I worked up the courage to show her the leather-bound history of her house I had finally been given my Miss Sara, I had seen in person everything I’d always read about.
She touched the cover, gently, then smiled teasingly. “You like the house better than me, don’t you?”
“No,” I said, completely serious.
The house on the corner had been empty for twenty years. But when Maya kissed me, in the warm sunshine of the front parlor, I knew we’d do our best to fill it again.
THE END
Current Mood:
crazy