Storm House

The windows are thickly coated with gunk, and it’s obvious that they lost their purpose a long time ago. They rattle when the wind blows. Shelley listens to them quake in their frames when the thunder hits.

Shelley’s father comes home and with him a gust of wind that punches against the glass. Her mother comes home and with her a fog that shields the sun from coming in. “Insulation,” she coos, “good for our energy bill. And turn these lights off if you're not using them.”

Shelley wonders if they’ve bought apples at the store. A drought in Texas has shrunk the honeycrisps. You can still find them, even off season, but even a bushel leaves room in your bread box.

There’s a hunger inside Shelley, and it burns more than anything has ever burned. It is voracious and vicious and anxious. We could think of things much cooler, like a thumb sliding against the metal of a lighter too close to where it burns or a cheek against a car window on a summer afternoon, but Shelley can’t; it’s been too long since she’s felt such things.

The roof leaks, even when it isn’t raining. Her mother is so tired of calling someone to patch it up that she has decided to just let it happen. It doesn’t take too long for the smell of mold to settle in, but she doesn’t mind it too much. It floods her senses with memories of falling asleep, still soaking, in bathing suits. It reminds her of bare feet hitting the cement around public pools. It reminds her of happier times. None of the brightness, and all of the wet. The roof is beginning to swell, too. Bulbous. She thinks it’s like watching mushrooms budding new caps. It blisters. It droops. She waits with quiet intrigue for it to burst, for it to pour all sorts of sludge and bacteria down on her like a dam bursting, but it won’t happen so fast. Though sometimes, pieces do break off and hit her dresser with soft, wet, thumps.

As faint as a whimper her mother whispers, “There’s fruit in the fridge to eat.” Shelley opens the drawer and finds sludge, brown and sticky. It smells sickly sweet like peaches and vinegar, and fruit flies have gone crazy for it. Shelley can tell they sipped at it, had a frenzy, bred lots of babies until it got too sticky and trapped their little eyelash legs.

Shelley understands how they feel. Her mother and father play a game with the doorknob. Mom says, “Shelley, why don’t you go outside, have a walk, grab a sandwich?” Shelley will touch the knob and Father booms, “Shelley, what on Earth do you think you’re doing?” Shelley lets go of the knob. Mother says, “Shelley, have you left yet?” Shelley reaches for the knob. Father clenches his teeth so hard they bleed. Shelley lets go of the knob. Mother says, “Don’t pout. It’s no one’s fault but your own.” Shelley retreats. How much fun the three of them are having going through their motions. Shelley goes to bed hungry.

All sorts of things can grow on your body when nature is left to eat away at you. Twigs protrude from the surface of Shelley’s skin. They grow waxy green leaves that pop as Shelley lies in bed and plucks them off.

In the spring, Shelley’s father snaps the twigs off of her when he isn’t watching where he’s going, exposing the dense wooden meat. Shelley’s mother prunes them with shears when she braids Shelley’s hair. She scolds Shelley and tells her to take better care of herself. She says, “Look at the state of you, you’re covered in galls.” Shelley feels no fault for the things that grow on her. After a few days the bumps scar over.

Her ceiling rots the way she imagines a carcass would, but she’s never seen that happen. She imagines that it happens the same way that the peel of a banana rots, and that is something she’s familiar with. The skin slowly shrinks in on itself, separating from the flesh. She imagines the disease spreading to her walls. As she sleeps, she sees them melting in her dreams – their muscles are slacking off of their skeletons in one languid landslide. She is grateful to see the sun through their hollow bones.

In the morning, she watches her leaves turn orange and then brown. They don’t hurt as they crumble. She forgets to brush her teeth. Shelley’s father tells her to forget about her molars; that she won’t eat a single thing without saying her prayers. Shelley’s mother boils something in a pot and tells her to sit very still, and Shelley watches as it reduces down to nothing but burnt tubers. She doesn’t feel the steam from the pot through the humidity of the house, a choking, dank shroud that feels as natural as her feet on the ground.

Shelley goes a whole day like this. She listens to the little sounds of nothing being done: dishes rattling but not being cleaned, voices talking but nothing being said. The floorboards start to droop in the middle, having taken too much mildew. She wears socks and tries to slide instead of step as she retreats back to her room, once she’s been told it’s nightfall.

She sits alone in her room in the dark. This is when the house rattles the loudest. No one can hear her. No one is awake. From her body drops little rotted apricots. They’re wrinkled, like a wart that has fallen off. There’s a hunger in Shelley that burns, hotter than anything. She squeezes them between her thumb and index finger, until the juice runs red. She plops them into her mouth, holding her breath as she chews and swallows.

***

Oakley Harber is a 26 year-old queer writer hailing from Spring, Texas. They are currently growing up in Chicago, Illinois, where they studied Creative Writing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. When they aren't pretending their cats are two human children, they are teaching babies how to swim and going for long walks by the lake.