NOVEL NEXT A humble HOUSE
I don't remember when I was built, mainly because I wasn't alive at the time. I know I was designed by an architect with little or no reputation and a great apocalyptic paranoia, who lived in me for 64 years until he died of a heart attack while sleeping; I think he had a very terrifying nightmare, but to this day, I have no idea what it was about. He was a good person, although he masturbated a lot (like three to four times a day). I think he felt lonely, in the end, no one came to visit him.
My next tenants were the Torres family. I liked the parents, but the children were spoiled brats. I remember how they mistreated me by breaking the paint on my walls and leaving their mess everywhere. Although I have to admit that I got used to such acts, until the day they sold me. I honestly don't remember why they did it… I theorize that one of the parents got a considerable salary increase and decided to go to a better house. I don't blame them, I know there are prettier houses than me!
It took me almost a year and a half to get buyers, but in the end, I did it! The person who arrived was a 92-year-old woman. According to the photos she put on my walls, she was a famous actress in her time, but, due to her age, she was no longer allowed to act. I was with her for 21 years until an unknown man entered and stabbed her 57 times. It hurt me a lot not being able to do anything, and I honestly still hurt for it. Worst of all, she was completely healthy and strong. She still had many years to live!
I spent two years and three months alone. The days were long, and little by little, I deteriorated severely, until one day a cult bought me. According to what I heard, I was acquired thanks to the alarming number of deaths that had occurred inside me. I think they thought I was haunted or something like that. Anyway, I was painted, sanded, and polished. I had never been happier! And yes, they may have tried to summon the dead in me, but at least they didn't burn me or anything like that… That cult took like… 142 years to leave? Wow… Time flies by so quickly… Well, at least for me.
After them, I had a homeless man and a cat living in me. I have to admit that actually, the homeless man took care of me more than other people who had previously been my tenants. Maybe he didn't have the money to do it carefully, but he did try to clean me. I'm not sure why he didn't have any money, I just know he cried a lot at night; however, luckily he had his cat, who took care of him. They were like two peas in a pod, figuratively and literally. It was a great pity to hear how his cat, passing by me on the street, was hit by a motorcycle. A few days passed, and the man hanged himself with a rope in my living room. I don't blame him, but I would have liked to do something for him… I suppose I couldn't do much more than give him shelter and maybe warmth on cold nights…
What was strange about him was that when he died, he came back to life as one of those zombies that appeared in the actress's movies. However, he couldn't break free from the rope, so he hung there for a whole year. I think a zombie apocalypse was happening outside my house all that time, as I heard chaos everywhere... Anyway, at least I had company all that time! Although later a survivor came to loot me and killed the hobo officially, but he left him there, so the smell of death remained.
I spent 27 years waiting for someone else to come. I was falling apart thanks to the nature outside. It looked good aesthetically, but at the same time, it hurt a lot. Am I a bit masochistic? Maybe yes... Anyway, someone arrived where I was. A man, dressed in white and with big blue eyes. He looked very futuristic. He was talking to someone through what I could identify as "a phone more complicated than those existing in the years of my creation." He said he was going to completely renovate me, adding self-renewal parts so that I wouldn't be gradually destroyed, and turning me into a house that could control itself. I think you can imagine how happy I was. Not needing anyone to take care of me? It was perfect!
The man kept his promise. To this day, I don't know who he was or what he wanted, as fast as he came, he went. My theory is that at some point humanity defeated the zombies and with new technology, they began to rebuild the world.
My new tenants were another family. This time it was a mother and daughter. They hated each other, always shouting at each other and sometimes the fight escalated to blows. It's a great pity that such things happen in some families! They lived in me for 14 years, but one day a type of machines arrived and took them away. I think maybe some machines rebelled against humans and that's why they took them. The interesting thing is that both tried to fight against them as a team... I spent 14 years watching the hatred they had for each other, but in the end, I think they still felt affection for each other...
A year later, a machine started living in me; it wasn't that different from humans. This one, like the man who built me, watched quite a bit of pornography. Now that I think about it, he had a strange fetish for other machines' feet... Now that I think about it, all my tenants have had strange fetishes! I think it's something that living beings have in common...
I'm getting off-topic, I'm sorry. The important thing about that machine was that it often put on the news, I think it was its favorite entertainment (apart from pornography). One day, one of the newscasts reported that a meteor the size of the moon was approaching Earth. Two days later, the machine was leaving me to go to an escape ship they had created among themselves. I didn't want it to go, I was afraid because I knew that when the meteor hit Earth, I was going to be destroyed and I was going to die... The last thing I saw of that being was how it looked at me, it seemed... Sad to leave me...
All of this brings us to the present.
"A few minutes left before the meteor hits and I die with all the other houses... I'm so scared... Could someone please save me!? Help me! Whoever it is!... I don't want to die! The shock wave will be the first to come... No... Why does it have to end like this?"
That's what I thought at that moment. I looked for a solution, tried to shout, but a house can't do that... And then I realized the sad truth... The meteorite had already fallen, I was feeling a slight tremor in my foundations that increased every second. My foundations... My foundations?
Then, without further warning, I started to fly. Remember when I told you that my architect had a great apocalyptic paranoia? The masturbating genius had literally put rockets in my foundations! Not only that, the blue-eyed man made sure I had unlimited energy from the sun, causing me to never run out of strength to keep going, and thanks to his upgrade in me to control my actions, I managed to activate the rockets.
I flew far away, reached space, and managed to observe Earth breaking into pieces. Now it was just the universe and me. I felt the greatest happiness, one that honestly no living being can feel anywhere.
Now I am floating, exploring the universe. Thank you, tenants, for keeping me standing for so long.