The House With A Green Velvet Couch

Once, the house used to be homely. The walls were bright white, the space seemingly filled with endless possibilities. There was a huge wooden door with a round handle and a lock that had never been used. Windows reached up to the high ceiling. A sea of light spread through the home, following every corner. When it was dark, there were lamps. Warm lamps. Always present were the flowery curtains, the dining table, the mostly empty library, the comfy armchairs in which you sank.

In the middle of the living room stood a green velvet couch. On it sat a young couple – a man and a woman in their late twenties. They sat next to each other, backs straight, eyes fixed on the wall. They did not interact, except for their hands resting between them. The woman’s palm covered the man’s. Their faces were relaxed. They did not speak. They remained seated, motionless, emotionless on that dark green couch.

The wooden handle turned. It was a 5-year-old girl with two blond pigtails tied in yellow ribbons. She wore a yellow dress with blue balloons. She passed through the door bravely, looking around as if this were the first house she had ever entered. She was smiling wide, as if someone had let her eat ice cream for breakfast. She ran around, screaming, laughing, crying, sometimes all at once. Then a loud sound. A side table on the floor, pieces of a broken lamp. The glass shattered. The girl screamed, stepped on the shards, and ran away.

The couple on the couch did not react. Their hands still touched.

At the front door appeared dark brown curls – under them a girl. Her blue eyes peeked from behind the mess of hair. She stepped inside. Another person to fill the space.

With time, the white walls had gotten darker, almost gray. The girl with the dark curls got to work. She opened the curtains so light could get in again. The gray turned lighter with help from the sun. She bought flowers and potted plants and watered them every day. There was life in that home. Her curls got shorter, she’d cut bangs, dye them pink, then black. Yet her eyes stayed blue.

One day she set up a blank canvas and paints by the window. Between watering the plants, she painted.

Another day, as she painted, a boy entered the home through that window. He didn’t use the door. He didn’t speak to the flower girl. They didn’t exchange a glance. She kept painting. He painted the walls. No more white or gray. He painted until the house was all the same, but entirely different.

The couple on the couch didn’t move. Their faces bore the marks of age, of time spent in sorrow and desire, as they sat there, palms together.

The girl kept watering her plants, adding color each day. The boy found his seat – a nice armchair, where he played guitar. The silence in the house was for the first time filled with sound, with music.

The couple’s hands slowly parted. Only their pinkies still touched.

The blue-eyed girl added the final colors to her piece. She hung the painting on the wall. It was a little crooked to the left. She did not fix it. She looked and smiled, then stepped out the door. She left it open behind her and looked back – no regret in her eyes. The only thing reflected in that blue was the beauty she had created – the flowers blooming and the crooked painting.

The couple sat there. The boy stayed in his armchair and kept playing.

The paint around the painting began to peel. The walls became wrinkled and uncertain.

The boy looked at the wall with disappointment. The hand that had created music was now clenched into a fist. He could not accept that the vibrance was fading. That was how time worked—destroying things gradually. He ripped the painting, broke a vase, a window, a lamp. The house was not the same.

In anger, the boy left and shut the door behind him hard – so hard it opened a little again.

*****

The house is shattered and unrecognizable. The only thing intact – the couple and the dark green couch. They sit there, pinkies touching, faces bruised by time. They are not speaking. The house is falling around them, but it isn’t really. The couple has never moved, and they will remain unmoving, even after another person comes through the door. No matter how much the house changes, they remain.The house is shattered, unrecognizable. Changed.
My heart is shattered, unrecognizable. Changed.
But I am grateful you remain.

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