15And if you get too far inside, you'll only see my reflection /
It's always best when the light is off, I am the pick in the ice /
Do not cry out or hit the alarm, we're friends till we die
'Climbing up the Walls,' Radiohead
-
Chapter One
It was always safe to assume that what we don't understand might strike a fear. But it could also spark an interest or a love, or a hate, or even a cloyed reaction. If experience has taught us one thing to everyone, it is that we could never ignore the new. Even ask Pandora. The unspoiled objects that we have not encountered in life will always enrich us.
Seth understood this. He practically breathed the laws himself through his own activities. Even after college and after he was taught about being wise for descions and learning facts, he knew that he couldn't turn away from the idea of that little scrappy house in the city. He was suppose to be the smart school kid who knew better. Seth should have understood that he should have never sold out his money just to buy some shanty in a barely-known city close to his hometown and campus that was so far, far away.
But he did. Only because this new house striked a fear. It striked an interest, a love, a hate, and even that cloyed reaction.
How Seth encountered it was simple. The average boy-meets-house relationship that we don't hear often enough, now do we? Imagine, if you will, the eyes of a youth has he took in the city of Docherty, a little turn-of-the-century place in the large state of Pennsylvania. What else would he be doing there on a weekend but examining this little piece but searching for a career in techological engineering?
Here was this brash, youth of a man scanning the area like mad; looking for the building of his choice for a Friday interview. To think, Seth B. Wallace himself dressed in fine wear of a black business suit and tie and he didn't even have his own car! He would have borrowed, of course, from his friend of a friend but a weekday is a weekday and Seth was unable to retrieve it, let alone not worry about how he would be able to pull this off of getting his first job.
In spite of this and in spite of the job opportunity and the fact that Seth was practually clamoring in his awkward corporation shoes of the sidewalk, he automatically stopped as his eyes fell on her; The Victor Household. His body jerked to the side of the sidewalk and completed his look with dazed eyes. Oh, that day he imagined he would have looked like a fool just perched on the street seeing that home with its poky, neon-yellow sign that screamed "FOR SALE" in bold, black letters.
Was it his fate or was good fortune? To be honest, Wallace loathed his apartment as much as the next male would if his roommate seemed to bring home every ugly girl imaginable in this side of the state. Yes, he was cruel. Yes, he was horrible. But so was Adam if he thought he could pull that act on him again saying that some skank got to finish off his leftover dinner beers.
It was such a strange home apart of a stranger city. How this 'beauty of a place,' as Mr. Wallace described so indulgently to friends and guests later on, survived was beyond him! Barely a home it was as it nearly stood out with a sheathing paint of whites and blacks that were so simple. It was barely a home and more of an apartment on ground than anything but it was all his at the time. All his in it's stout but strongly built glory! A model beyond its time and certaintly beyond Seth.
Just completely standing there with an awed look, the young man paused with a slight thought running through his head. It didn't take long however as he reached into his cellphone to make one important call.
The interview could wait now.
-
We all know he got the house. We also already know that he loved that house. 'The Victor,' as you imagine Seth calling it with a headstrong voice and a grin, earned its keep with the honorable title, 'Best-Idea-I've-Ever-Made.' Sure, why not! It was a fantastic house! Right, the basement wasn't pretty to look out and some of the rooms shared the same beauty as Adam's one-stand-wonders, but it shared a quiet enviorment with the young man. It held up, and that's all that Wallace wanted, really. He didn't care that some of the corners of the walls might have pieces of mold crawling over the ceiling or maybe a few snags and nicks over wooden floors. He could clean those up, after his career shot up more money. You could say the boss wasn't exactly jumping for joy when houses became more valuble than time for Seth. You could say the boss simply didn't like the boy at all, but Seth wasn't clever enough to see it.
As time ticked by and by again, a little more was spruced up and maybe a tid bit of color was poured over the house. Until lastly, after months of love and accomplishment, it was a house fit for a Wallace and that's all a Wallace needed. A clean house.
-
"God..." Seth whispered to himself as he always whispered from tiring days at work. The ritual would be the same. Fall on trusting chair, tilt head back, and moan. So he did but this time he added a new move to it by stretching his arms. This techo-bullshit wasn't exactly for him and one look at him it was true. It was as if he were a weed in the pile of sunflowers just waiting to be yanked by the hand of Career. Ha, Career. It was his God now, by sure.
Looking at him would make anyone laugh if they knew him. Scraggily sandy brown hair that managed to flop and eyes that were more of a gray than anything. Alive, yes, but not colorful. He was a bit short for his brisk age of twenty-three and wearing today's assemble of bulging blue jeans, thick black socks, and a red t-shirt with the black letters speling out over it: 'ROCK STAR WANTED: MUST BE FAMOUS AND EGOTISTICAL.'
Ah, yes. What else would Seth be but some scamp with the heart of cheap, semi-gold? He was a smart man, sure, but he never knew what he was exactly doing. That was the fun of it, his loved ones assumed, for Sethy-Boy to run out full-charge and grab what he could grab and make what he can make. It was rather fun to surprise people. If he hadn't been so 'grabby' and 'makey,' he wouldn't have gotten 'The Victor' right?
Still. Somehow this house was a reminder time and time again why it was for sale in the first place. But it wasn't like it was frightening him at all. It wasn't like, ahh! Boo! A zombie's chewing up my sink drain or wham! What the hell is the Wolfman doing in my drug cabinet?! It was just. . .weird. Awkward and yet. . .memorizing. 'The Victor' wasn't pulling any tricks on him, was it?
No. It wasn't because Seth loved this house and that was enough reason for it not be to be unnerving to him. Just sitting in this stiff, leather-padded chair was enough comfort for the boy to feel better. At least the sun was going down now and everything would be calm. . .and everything would be. . .would be...safe...and. . .
Before Seth could even think of another thing, he was out like a light and fell deep asleep.