Mysterious House

Across the street from my childhood home, was a mystery house. A shabby, weathered house, with hanging gutters and pealing paint, and no curtains on the windows.

The man and woman who lived there were as tattered and dirty as the house. They'd sit on their porch all day and late into the evening, eating chips and ice cream from the carton, while multiple children were left unattended inside. I say “multiple children” because we didn’t know how many children there were. They never came out, not even to school.

Occasionally, we would catch glimpses of them through the filthy windows. One day, while playing with the girl next door, I asked if she ever saw the kids.

“Only through the windows”, she confirmed, “They never come outside.” She took me inside and we peered through her living room window, directly into the mystery house. As we watched, two of the children, naked girls, with ratted hair, smeared poop all over the window.

“OOH!, did you see that?” I asked with horror.

“Oh they do that all the time”, was her response.

That evening, I shared my experience with Mother, and asked why the kids across the street never went to school. “I thought kids HAD to go to school, won’t they be in trouble?”

Having seen they were naked, I concluded, “Maybe they don’t have any clothes.”

“That could be”, she said, “They look like they are very poor.
Why don’t we go through your drawers and get all the clothes that you and Rose no longer wear and take them over to them?”

“Good idea!” I shouted, and went straight to my room to get to work.

The next day, Mother carried two big bags of clothes over as we watched from the porch. We could hardly sleep that night and anxiously awaited for them to appear in school.

They never did.

Several weeks later, we heard the ambulance sirens stop right in front of our house. We all ran out to the porch and watched as the medical personnel ran inside the mystery house and quickly returned with a little boy, wrapped in a yellow blanket, "dead from malnutrition,” they said. He was so tiny, the size of a baby. I overheard one of the adults say, “The poor thing, never even learned to walk.”

That night as I lay in my bed, I cried for that little boy, and for his siblings. I cried and prayed for all the little kids in the world who needed help. My sister and I included.

We never saw those people again. In time, the mystery house was condemned, and torn down, but 35 years later, as I casually pass the lot, I am in-explicitly drawn to the emptiness, and continue to feel a deep sadness for the children.