Devonne Brown

House at Dusk, Edward Hopper

I stumbled out of the mansion’s patio door, the band blared jazz, and I needed air, the whole house panted with people. My head was hot and my hair stuck to my neck from the prickly head, My ears rang from music, laughter, and the jumbled jargon of the rich and famous and their wannabees, The wannabees dressed better than the rich and famous and didn’t get as shit faced, but worked hard at it. That’s why I was stumbling. I wanted to be one of them.

I don’t know who was hanging outside the upstairs window reciting Dylan Thomas, “Rage, Rage against the night,” but his Welsh accent needed a lot of work. He sounded like Liverpool and Atlanta had a lovechild. I imagined that Dylan Thomas stood outside drunk and screaming his poetry into the night sky shaking a clenched fist. Maybe the accent wasn’t that far off after all. A drunk sounds like a drunk wherever they are.

The mansion heaved. People moved in and out of it in groups of ten, twenty, or two. Rarely did a single person enter or exit the building. When one did, it looked scared and self conscious. Three single folks, two men and a woman had come and gone, and all had borne the same look before they entered and after they exited. They managed a visage of confidence inside the party. They wouldn’t dare let near strangers see weakness nor vulnerability. It just wasn’t done. 

I sat on a swing and watched the mansion breathe. Its rhythm began to slow and people began to leave through its doors, even the patio door from which I exited, It was broad and tall. As the people left the house at dusk, the walls relaxed inward, as if taking in a deep breath and holding it in. In with the good air, out with the bad. The house replaced all the repulsive energy with a clean, bright spirit. 

I watched its ghosts return. The piano began to play the Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata while the apparitions waltzed.