A picture paints a thousand screams

                                A Picture Paints A Thousand Screams

Stepping onto the verandah of my grandma's house was like stepping back into my childhood, because as soon as my feet touched that timber deck, memories came flooding back in the torrent we call the past. There I was, back as an eight year-old sitting on the verandah steps, watching the sun lead a parade of colours beyond the horizon, my older brother, Dean, was hitting tennis balls with his aluminium baseball bat, my grandma came out to tell us dinner was ready...my grandma...she was the reason I had come back to the house. My name, Jack Samson and my purpose was to retrieve items specified in my grandma's, who had passed away recently, will.

It was the first time in twenty-seven years I had set foot on that verandah and smelt the scent of lavender and oak that came from the house like notes out of a piano. I opened the door to find the place exactly as I remembered it, the loungeroom with a fireplace to the left, the living room to the right and straight ahead of me the hallway to the kitchen and a flight of stairs reaching to the second level, it was as if the perpetual clock of ageing  never affected the house. I stepped into the loungeroom and found more memories awaiting me, I was lying on the floor next to Dean, staring into a crackling fire that danced with the joy that it had been brought to life, grandma sat in her rocking chair reading us Treasure Island, I remembered listening about the "black spot" and how whoever it was given to was going to be killed. As I scanned the room I saw a book lying next to the fireplace, I walked over and picked it up, and laughed out loud at the irony that the golden block letters imprinted in the leather bound cover spelt "Treasure Island". As I went to put the book back in the bookshelf in the living room, I passed the staircase and I thought I had heard the faintest sound of singing, which made a slight ripple of hairs stand up on my back and neck. I decided to ignore it, as I thought it was just my imagination, and proceeded into the living room. Little did I know that it wasn't my imagination, it was death playing his piano.

I then set off to complete my task of gathering possessions that were no longer possessed; a vase, a hand made quilt, old porcelain statues, bowls, plates and coasters made of china, items worth something only at a sentimental pawn shop. As I worked I found myself humming a tune, but I couldn't remember where I had heard it or if I had ever heard it at all. To take my mind of it I looked outside the window to see how the world appeared outside of that eye-of-the-storm of the time cyclone. It was a warm summer's day in the country, the sun shone down on the earth like a king watching over his subjects and the breeze blew across the fields of straw making them look like golden waves lapping against an invisible shore, but it seemed somehow eerie as if something was hiding behind the air itself, it felt like I was reading between the lines of an unknown book to find only intangible space.

As I finished my work downstairs I realised I had more work awaiting me upstairs and I felt as if I'd finished running a marathon only to find a two-hundred metre sprint to the winners podium. I ascended the stairs of unsympathising wood and arrived at the familiar second level of the house, the long hallway stretching either side of me, the rooms like hollowed out caves  in a tunnel, and the carpet that marched down the centre of the hallway in a procession of powerful red and majestic blue. As I walked in the right wing of the hallway towards my grandma's bedroom, a painting caught my eye. It was an unusual painting as it was the only one in the house and it wasn't a brilliant painting at that, it was a portrait of an old lady with hair tied up in a bun, grey like cold metal, which seemed to suit her personality because her face was stern as if she disapproved of the painter. At that point I remembered a story my brother had told me about her.

I stood with him staring at the woman with paint for eyes "She used to be a singer," my brother started "With the best voice in the town, all the women were jealous of her voice and all the men were hypnotised by it, especially her husband, who loved her voice so much he killed himself so that he wouldn't see her voice become old and imperfect. After her husband died she confined herself to her house, growing bitter over the years, until she wasted away leaving only this painting behind. They say she sometimes comes out of the painting to kill people, but before she does you can hear her singing beautifully." At the time I was scared by that story but I no longer had time to be scared by ghost stories. I then walked to the left wing of the hallway, entered a storage room and started a job that could be compared to that of a graverobber. I soon worked out that this two-hundred metre sprint had turned into a four-hundred metre sprint and that I would have to stay the night in order to reach the finish line.   

I lay asleep in the bed my grandma had slept in previously until I was awoken by a sound. It was like music , soft and sweet, and I realised it sounded like the tune I had hummed earlier, but almost as soon as it started it stopped. I went to go back to sleep when the singing started again, I wondered what it could be and where it could be coming from. I got out of bed, my feet touching woven grass, and grabbed a small torch from the bedside table, when I closed the bedroom door from the hallway the singing stopped. I flashed the torch's beam into the hallway, drawing back the curtain of darkness, there was nothing there. I started to go back into the bedroom when something got the attention it was seeking from my eyes.

                            It was the painting and it was empty.
                           
                            And then the singing started again.