The Grass

Short Story for https://macabremonday.substack.com/ and Carl Sandburg

It was called Romanesque revival during its day, but it had been abandoned as long as children walked to and fro to elementary school. From all of the openings after the war to the hurried closings when there were fewer students, there was still at least one elementary school that stayed open. And so everyday group of students one by one tromped past through the overground pages and untrammeled the boughs that were covering the blue tile on the roof, through the morning sun, and beyond into the darkness. The unloaded grass would grow from spring to fields of unruly weed and seed. The bones of the house were from a distant century, and both ornate and stretching high to the sun and solid as they built architecture back in that day and age.

At a certain point, most of the children took to walking across the street across the yellow line that divided this way from that way to avoid the white fence and white door, even though this whiteness was a memory from long past. At night it somewhat resembled a long and haunted face with eyes that stared down from the second floor and a single tower that reached the third.

 One time a lady thought she saw a ghost in the little windows on the service of the roof. Her Labrador retriever barked loudly at it and many people looked out. A policeman came eventually bought saw nothing wrong and no one else had seen anything in the red Victorian Romanesque revival. It was the third oldest building in that part of the town so far from the ocean and not a small distance from the Great Lakes. Originally it was meant to be alone so that the leader who built it could indulge her wishes from the inheritance that she caught from her husband drowning on the ship he had captained. But she needed one thing and then another and an entire town grew up to provide each thing that she wanted.

Eventually, the rare forms of Clay that produced porcelain were found in the hills not far from the cottage, as she liked to call it, and a business producing porcelain grew up at a point near where the hills and River conjoined and thence outwards to the sea. At one point or another, the old woman, with her silver hair and blue dress that she constantly wore, died and there was a fight over who would get the building. But it was left alone after she was dead and left to grow the grass that was imported to cover the landscape.

The town grew and covered the landscape which was gently rolling hills. A developer decided to create adverse possession because he knew that no one would object and developed a cemetery behind the Romanesque cottage. By the time anyone noticed that his graveyard was actually in the territory that was purchased by the owner, several people of great standing were already buried with great edifices marking their names. And so when the train came through it was found passed to divide the upper from the lower, and the upper was crowned by the red tower.

People would then pass through this place, only two trains every day at the station which was reduced to a stopover because many of the restaurants were beholden to the “day carriage trade.” And more than a few businesses added a few dollars to the bottom line by selling knickknacks of the great plains which started somewhere around there.

By this point, the grass had grown unruly but there was little enough money to do anything about it, even the overgrown willow trees and the two immense oak trees were left to do their merry work of covering over the dilapidated coarse rubble stone walls. At night it was always in darkness but a few people, like the first lady who reported ghosts mentioned in quiet conversation, almost in whispering hush, that there was an old woman who looked out at the bustle that had grown up around her and muttered. But everyone else said “Two years, 10 years…” and trailed off. There was nothing about it to make it even a landmark.

But the dogs continued to howl from time to time.

Then one day a man showed up at court and presented a deed to the red Romanesque cottage. And since the cemetery had removed much of the land and the train had abutted most of the rest, the court decided that the Romanesque house could be his.

In spring two entire wagons of a freight train were scheduled to decamp the first wave of the possessions which were to occupy the Romanesque cottage. The idea was that it would be a haven from the East Coast business that the man pursued because he was in the import and export business. As the man was fond of nautical things there was a ship in glass among the many paraphernalia. The train arrived and just as efficiently several trucks were there to deliver all of this to the cottage. The man was waiting at the cottage and signed for everything on the dotted line. He opened the gate and was in awe of how much had been done to make it seem impregnable and guarded. It was just as he wished, a place to enter into and be alone from the world.

He stepped onto the grass and realized it was Kentucky bluegrass and almost nothing else, even the crabgrass had not penetrated the lawns. He then made his way around to the carriage and opened up the side for the person he selected to know the lawns, this would happen the next day because of other engagements but that would have to do.

He went into the backyard and found a blue and white cherry blossom porcelain table and chairs and settled himself back to enjoy the evening sun. then it grew dark. A few dogs howled and one woman thought she saw a figure on the top floor.  One man noticed that no lights were on even though he knew that the building was going to be occupied.  He called the sheriff and was told that he would look at it in the morning.

A night train rolled through but did not stop.

In the morning, what the sheriff found was a skeleton that matched the man’s description. It was overgrown with the grass.

And ever afterward no one claimed the Romanesque building and everyone decided that the best path was to shovel the man in the backyard and let the grass go to work.

The grass then was left to work.