Eden:
Missus and Mister Rodriguez died at the end of Eden Street. Missus and Mister Rodriguez thrived at the end of Eden Street. Missus and Mister Rodriguez will always be at the end of Eden street.
The house is typical. A suburban recipe for a ripe family. Colored like the warm earth; the roof is dark brown, and its walls are brushed peach, the inside has islands made up of orange furniture upon a brown sea of carpet paired with a burgundy wallpaper that contains floral patterns. A perfect setup for a nuclear situation.
Missus and Mister Rodriguez never had a full couch, only love seats and comfy chairs that could consume you. They also never owned a TV. Just books. Shelves and shelves of books tucked away into the empty rooms they never used. Guest rooms, side rooms, closets, and living spaces. Including the stacks that would accrue on multiple corners of the spaces they did use.
Missus and Mister Rodriguez collected only what they needed.
The house still stands. Multiple families came and went. Each one attempts to piece it together but the plaster never holds. On top of never warming up properly, the shadows are deeper than the night could possibly muster. Old things lay dormant. More than a few talk of hearing voices, but if they only looked closely, they would have seen the floral markings in the walls, etched.
Missus and Mister Rodriguez never started a biological family. Missus and Mister Rodriguez shaped one. Eden street. It was never as busy as when the Rodriguez couple was alive. It was a hotspot of what good old America calls: Community. Even to the end.
Ten houses in total, including the Rodriguez residence. They all formed a simple horseshoe and every house is ordained to appear like the embodiment of perfection. Every morning, every lawn would be speckled in large shining drops of water. Sprinkled on since dawn. Kids played in the street. Husbands and wives mingled with one another. The smell of carne asada permeated the evening humidity. Missus and Mister Rodriguez always provided the good stuff. Food, drinks, dessert, a spot to lay, talk, laugh, vent. It was safe, comforting.
Missus and Mister Rodriguez never let their private lives dwell within others, no, they invited private affairs into them. Outward appearances only go so deep, but the atmosphere Missus and Mister Rodriguez created allowed their neighbors, their friends, to open up like a book.
Brick by brick, they built a bunker of secrets, wrapped up between the two. Contained tightly. In time, they realized what Eden really had. Underneath the veneer of communal beauty was the slime of personal desires and dreams. The street holds deep greens but there are cracks forming in the concrete.
Missus and Mister Rodriguez liked to watch Eden every Sunday. Every night before dusk set into the street and crickets jumped in between bushes. Missus and Mister Rodriguez watched with smiles. Only smiles…
Just sly enough for the others to notice? Just bright enough to flash a visage of contempt?
When the firefighter watered his grass with his shirt off he would see them. While the dusk reflected off his pecs, he watched them. He followed their gaze from house to house. Their cheeks move up and down with hushed words, muted, and never heard.
Mister Rodriguez would lean in closer to his Missus’ ear. The firefighter believed he slurped serpents from it. She always smiled. He hated it. He hated them both. In reality – They laugh at him. They laugh at the street. They believe themselves better. Better than all of them. Better than him. Not on his street. His land.
The firefighter spread his infection like a flame in a dry field. In under a week, the community went up in smoke.
Next Sunday held nothing but streetlights and echoes of their conversation as it bounced around in the emptiness. Missus and Mister Rodriguez took it in stride, and headed in early for the night. They were reading to each other when the firefighter entered the house with a shotgun.
He walked in from the backdoor, which was always unlocked.
He walked past the office where he confessed his transgressions.
He walked up the stairs, past scattered pages and books.
He listened to them speak to each other, they were reading in Spanish.
Outside their door.
He unloaded half of the tube into the bed. Four rounds of buckshot separated their skin and muscle from their bones while separating the pages of the books they kept around themselves. Burnt paper and blood filled the room. Their stains painted the walls red. He walked back home, showered, and slept.
He got off on parole. Everyone in Eden vouched for him. Everyone vouched for the silencing of their secrets. The firefighter hauled himself and his family away after the trial.
Leaving two empty houses and a broken paradise.
Missus and Mister Rodriguez died at the end of Eden street, but they never did leave Eden street. That earth colored house contained them, as well as they contained it. So it kept them.
The house at the end of Eden street has never found another happy owner. Everyone watches from inside of their own homes as the moving trucks come back after three weeks – every time. They watch, they watch, they watch, never speaking.
Missus and Mister Rodriguez keep up with their lovely home. Even as it sags more and more each year. It is becoming the earth again, through death does it still live, and through death do the Rodriguez couple live on. Where he whispers into her ear, night after night, story after story, secret after secret.
Excellent writing. Your work has changed significantly over the past months. It was always great, but now I feel more colors and deeper symbols. Also, I like the ritual repetition that gives this piece depth. Reads like a modern fable. I do not doubt you and your writing. It is truly excellent, and you will write many extraordinary books. And I will read them all.
This good