The House Is Alive

Explanation of the Musket Fire

Chapter 2: Explanation of Musket Fire 

My morning is not as bright as I wished it to be. Especially not after the crazy incident of the preceding night. I can’t stop thinking about the firing musket without a shooter that kept me at high alert all night. In all my times of working as a Night Watcher when I’d have little to no sleep at night, I’ve never had to feel this way; my head feels so heavy. It’s like I can still hear the musket ringing in there and it just won’t stop. I get off my bed and head to the kitchen to get some tea. Hopefully, I’ll be able to remember where the kitchen is. I don’t want to have to ask anyone, much less Nurse Joy. I don’t know how she would look at me this morning seeing that I acted like a lunatic before her last night. If truly, she didn’t hear the loud ringing of the musket, I’ll have to prove my sanity before I raise any foul suspicions on her end. I like my job -or at least, I want it. And so I have to be in my best state of mind to stay here long enough. I head out of my room in my white v-neck shirt and long chinook pants. Sometimes I wonder why I sleep in these things. I’m not much of a night wear person and I know it’s not so cool but I don’t think anybody is going to die from wearing chinooks to bed anyway.

The corridor is pretty quiet. I’m starting to think it’s always this way. Every single place in this community is simply too quiet. Almost like it’s being inhabited by ghosts. There are poles attached horizontally to one of the walls in the hallway. Above the poles are pictures of gym trainers instructing their trainees on what to do. I’m guessing the poles are for walking exercises. I’ve seen old people use one of these on tv. The poles look rusted though. Most of the emulsion paint on it have peeled off, exposing the rusted parts of the metal bar. It could use a replacement or repainting if you ask me. I walk a little further to the next door on the corridor and gratefully, it’s the kitchen.

“Grey?” I ask myself when I step into the dark themed kitchen.

Why would someone think to paint a kitchen grey? I don’t think the builders of this house knew anything about the workings of colors and mood when they were choosing the colors for the interiors. As much as I try to focus on fixing myself a cup of tea, I can’t ignore the all wrongs the theme of the kitchen is doing to my soul; and I’m not exaggerating. I can literal feel the joy in me sipping out through a broken part of me. I shut my eyes for a few seconds and try to imagine something I’d like. A garden. Yes. A colorful garden. I see myself walking through rose bushes and sitting under the warm sunlight. I imagine birds chirping on treetops and making nests for their young. Like magic, I perceive the sweet aroma of fresh scenting flowers, romancing my nostrils.

“Ernesto?” I hear someone call me from the kitchen door and I turn to see who it is.

“Oh. Hello,” I clear my throat.

It’s Nurse Joy. Of course, she would be the first person I see this morning.

“Did you have any sleep at all? I thought you were supposed to rest all through the morning because of your late night shift,” she says and drops the bouquet of flowers on the kitchen table.

I guess there wasn’t magic after all. I was sniffing actual flowers the whole time.

“I Uhm… I couldn’t sleep much,”

“Don’t tell me it’s because of the musket fire you heard last night,” she says, after she has dropped the flowers, with air quotes over the words ‘musket fire’.

It’s obvious she is starting to think me crazy.

“No, not that,” I lie.

I don’t want to give her -or anyone- any reasons to think me unfit for my position at the facility.

“I was just really thirsty and I came to make myself something to drink. Tea, specifically,”

“I see,” she heads to one of the small wooden cabinets on the wall. “And how far have you gone with that?”

“Not far. I was looking for a kettle or something,”

Which is what she brings out from the small cabinet. She waves it at me and smiles. I try to mirror her smile but my brain doesn’t help me with it; for some reason, it’s hard to wear a simple smile today. She half fills the kettle with water and places it on a pressure cooker to boil. Then she leaves me with it. I stand and watch the water boil and in few seconds, the kettle starts to whistle. I’m expecting the pressure cooker to go off when the temperature is right but it doesn’t stop. I guess it’s not one of the automatic ones. I walk towards it to turn it off myself but the strangest thing happens with the cooker. When normal cookers go off after whistling this one starts to rumble on the spot. The kettle shakes rigorously, almost coming off the cooker and I’m torn between turning the switch off on the wall and lifting the kettle off the cooker first. I’m literally at a standstill right now.

The water starts to pour out of the kettle and my brain clicks.

“Crap!”

I reach for the switch on the wall and turn it off so that the noise from the pressure cooker starts to subside. I exhale. I’m really going to need a tough heart if I’m going to blend in this house. A lot of things turn me off for the littlest reason now and even I don’t understand why.

“Mr Max,” I say under my breath.

I just remembered I planned, last night, to speak to him today. I haven’t seen or heard from him since I last saw him yesterday. He did say he won’t be around the facility most of the time. I wonder when I’ll get to see him again. In the meantime, I check the small cabinet Nurse Joy had opened earlier for a tea cup and I find one. I rinse it with the water from the kitchen tap, then I fill it with the hot water in the kettle. There’s a box of teabags on the kitchen counter and I pick one out of the remaining few, and dip it into the ceramic cup of water. I dip the bag in and draw it out -I repeat this process to enable the content of the teabag mix with the water. As I do so, I notice the design on the tea cup. It’s a floral design of pink and purple flowers aligned to form an oval shape with that beastly thing at the center -the musket. It’s painted on the cup the same way it is hung on the wall outside the facility. This just goes further to prove that there is something sacred about the musket, and someone in here should know it. If not the residents, then the workers or the owners. I sip on my tea with my mind a million miles away from my body. I want to stay focused on my job and think less about these ‘funny’ things happening around me, but there’s just too much in my face for me to ignore. They say what you don’t know can’t kill you, but I could have died out in the field last night.

I rub my temples with the tip of my finger and gulp down the cup of tea. It also helps -the tea. I look at the box from where I took it to see if it’s a calming tea but no part of the label says so. I don’t know what it is but it’s proving to be a good cure for my disturbed mind. I rush the tea into my mouth. It’s hot on my tongue but I don’t mind. As long as it helps purify my mind. This is day two of my work and I have to be okay. For me, at least. I leave the cup of tea in the sink and head out of the kitchen, back to my room, to take a quick shower. The water is very cold but I’m in no mood to return to the old pressure cooker. I turn on the tap and allow water from the shower fall to the ground. The tiles are equally as cold and like some air conditioner was turned on inside the bathroom, the entire place is freezing cold. I manage to stay in, I don’t plan on spending so much time in here; I have the whole day ahead of me. Few minutes into my freezing bath, I hear my door creak open. I turn to see who it is -fortunately, I can see the door from the bathroom- but i don’t find anyone around there.

“Who is it?” I call.

“Nurse Joy?” I say when no one answers.

I turn off the tap and dry myself before walking out of the bathroom. I thread slowly, trying as much as possible not to make too much noise with my feet so as to catch whoever is trying to sneak up on me if that is what this is. I’m almost at the exit of the bathroom when I hear the same creak again, but I’m looking at the door and truly there’s nobody there. The wind blows strongly against my skin when I finally get to the exit and although I shiver under its grip -thanks to the cold bath I just had- I sigh in relief. The door is probably moving under the influence of the wind.

“I thought I shut my door though,” I wonder as I walk towards the door to close it shut.

Just when I get to it, I’m taken aback by Arnold’s presence here.

“My God!” I yell, even though I try to hold it in. “What…since when…”

“Have I been here?” Arnold says, completing my question with a smirk on his face that annoys me just a little.

I don’t know what he finds funny.

“I just got here actually. I was waiting for you to finish up in the bathroom,” he says and I can’t help the suspicious look on my face. I can tell that it doesn’t sit well with him so I think of something else to say.

“How is your day going?”

Really, Ernesto?

“Great, actually. I came to ask you the same,” he says, looking rather serious. He gives me the same look my mum would when she knew something was wrong and I didn’t want to talk.

It made me talk, most of the time, which was a good thing. I guess I just find it easy being vulnerable when I see genuine care from a person.

“Are you going to tell me?” Arnold says like he is reading my mind.

“Or do you want to leave me with the stress of reading your mind,”

Or is he?

“No, I’m sorry. I’ve just been a little distracted lately. You know, thinking of this and that,”

“I see,” he says with furrowed brows. “Do you want to take a walk? I suppose that’s a part of your job here; talking rounds involves taking walks round the facility, right?”

“Yes, you’re right, Arnold,”

“So. What do you say,” he points his hands towards the exit of the facility.

“Of course. Please give me a minute to put on my uniform,”

“Sure. I’ll be on the porch,” Arnold says with a warm smile and leaves.

Arnold happens to be the only person to have really warmed up to me around here. Nurse Joy seems nice but I think it’s that’s way because of her job. I mean, it’s one of the qualities of being a good Nurse to be nice. I could be wrong but there’s just something about her that doesn’t sit right with me. I really hope the next few days will change my mind. In as much as I have to do what I have to in order to fit in around here, I’d also like to be naturally comfortable staying here. At least till I have the strong heart I was thinking of moments ago.

I hurry on, after dressing up, to the porch to find Arnold sitting on the bench.

“There you are. I thought you were going to take all day in your wardrobe,” Arnold says, probably trying to make light of the situation.

I scoff so as not to make his efforts be in vain.

He shifts on the bench, leaving just enough space for me to sit beside him. I take the spot and take a quick glance at his face, then I look away when our eyes lock. I’m looking at the lawn in front of us but I can still feel his gaze on me.

“How has work here been so far? Tell me, Ernesto, do you like this place? I hope you do because I like you already,” Arnold says and I’m not sure which question to answer first.

“Well it’s only been one day…”

“Yeah, but I believe a lot can happen in a day, you know,”

“I agree,” heck yeah, I agree.

I, of all people, should know this.

“So tell me, what’s occupying your mind?”

“Well,” I say, not sure where to begin. “There was the shootings from last night. I was outside when it started and I won’t lie, it took me by surprise and even worse, I was out there alone. I summoned enough courage to get up and find out who the shooter was, but there was none. I continued to look around as I came back to the facility to check up on the residents, and I still didn’t see the trace of a single soul out there with me,”

“Hmm,” I see Arnold shift on the bench.

He has an idea of what I’m talking about; he probably heard the shootings too. With his reactions, I feel like I’m talking to the right person, so I continue.

“Like all of that was not enough, I came into the facility and saw Nurse Joy sitting on the couch like she was waiting for me to come in. She didn’t look disturbed by the loud ringing of the musket. In fact, she said she didn’t hear it, can you believe that?”

“The whole of the Roanoke Retirement Community should have heard the shootings,”

“Exactly!” I said, overly excited about the fact that I finally found someone one my side.

Someone who also heard what I heard thereby, proving the fact that my mind is still intact. But I reduce my tone again when I realized Nurse Joy could be anywhere close listening in on our conversation.

“But she said she didn’t hear anything and I’m really confused as to how that is possible. The other logical explanation would be that she lied, but why?” I ask and for some reason, Arnold sighs deeply.

“I think I know why,” he says.

“Really. Please do tell,”

He turns his head up so that he is now staring at the musket above us. I follow his gaze and I wonder how I have the courage to sit under it after what happened the night before.

“The answer to that question is simple but difficult; no one is supposed to dwell on the matter of the musket fire. There’s just no point. Dwelling on it too much will cause more harm than good,” Arnold says so I try another route to get my answer.

“Okay, but what about the musket is so sacred and why do we hear it ringing at night? What is that about?”

“That’s a pretty long story. It all happened decades ago when the first owners of this place were still here, hiding from the foreign elite that came to enslave the people of our town. This facilty was the safest place to be because the foreigner didn’t use to come around here. They hadn’t found out about it at the time. They owners of the facility were a family of four -husband and wife with two sons. They used to accommodate a relative from the husband’s side; his brother, I think. He didn’t have a house of his own and he was offered a place to stay here. According to what I heard, the first few years was blissful for all of them, until this relative became rebellious all of a sudden,”

“What do you mean rebellious?”

“He got into small fights with some of the residents for reasons no one knows till date, and most people blamed him for everything because he did cause a lot of chaos. Sometimes he would light flower bushes up in flames, causing the nearby residents a lot of heartache as they try to put out the fire. You can imagine how it would be for the elderly involved in a fire accident,”

“Wow. That’s an absurd thing for a human being to do. Why did he think to do things like that?”

“I don’t know, Ernesto. Some people said he was possessed,”

“Ha!” I laugh. “Is that even a thing?” I ask but Arnold just looks at me with a straight face and looks away.

I stop laughing. He seriously believes in spirits assuming the body of a person. I try not to judge him. My mum also believes she has a spirit in her but she calls it ‘The Holy Spirit’. I’ll never understand it but I don’t call her crazy.

“The residents got really upset and they complained bitterly to the owners about their relative’s rash behavior. His brother was willing to let him go because he couldn’t control his actions against the residents of his estate, but his wife pleaded with him and asked that they find other solutions to their problem. So he let his brother stay for a few more days,”

“And did things get better?” I ask.

“Hmm,” Arnold scoffs. “You can imagine the answer to your question, I’m sure,”

I adjust on the bench to pay rapt attention to his next words.

“One night, the relative was seen on one of the plantation farms holding a musket to his chest. The owner’s wife came out and saw him and she was shocked to see the mighty weapon. Nobody knew the relative had one in his possession until that hour. She screamed at him and because he didn’t expect anyone to be there with him, he turned and pointed the gun at her reflexively. Her husband showed up just then and he was furious to see his brother pointing a gun at his wife,”

“Hmph! Pointing a weapon at my wife? I’d be mad at him too,” I add.

“I’d say. They got into an argument and they asked him where he got the weapon from and why he was using it at that time of the night. He claimed he saw one of the foreigners on their property and he was afraid they came to round them up as slaves. The owners called him a liar, saying their facility was totally secure and he shouldn’t try to put fear in the hearts of the residents. Little did they know that their crazy relative wasn’t being so crazy this time,”

“Really? How’s that?”

“He was right about the foreigner slave masters. They were around that they. They came out from the bushes in their numbers to capture the owners and the residents of the community. There was a lot of struggle between them and the foreigners and the crazy relative held on to his gun right, shooting down anyone that came his way. At a point, he saw that they were about to capture his brother and he was furious. He aimed the musket at the foreigner who had his brother but sadly, he misfired,”

“No,”

“Yes, my friend. He shot his brother who died on the spot,”

My mouth is open to react -to speak- but I can’t seem to get any words out for the first few seconds.

“His wife and children cried; they were embittered. The entire community was. And like that wasn’t enough, with the head of the community down, the foreigner were able to seize the rest of the people, and they took them in as slaves. That’s where slavery began for the people in this part of the town,”

“The owner’s wife and children must have had it worse. I can imagine what it must feel like loosing a father, a husband in such a time,”

“Yeah. It was a terrible period for the entire community and his family,” Arnold says and I spend a few seconds wondering what could have come over the owner’s relative to kill his brother the way he did. It still feels like there’s a missing link in between.

“If the relative is no longer here with his gun, why then do we still hear the shootings? What’s that about?”

“Oh that’s not from the relative. It’s from the owner,”

“The owner….does the shooting every night?” I ask, not sure of what I heard from Arnold’s mouth.

“We can say it that way, yes. It was some sort of reminder for his family. He wanted them to know he was still around. Every night, around 9 PM, the shots would be heard around the facility. Just a reminder,”

“A reminder,” I echo.

What sort of reminder is that? Are all the present residents okay with that? Hearing gunshots by…a ghost. Asides the residents, will I be okay with that?

“You’ll get used to it,” Arnold says, doing the mind reading thing again.

Logically, he must have seen the worry on my face. Now that I think about it, I can feel the worry on my face. But I wouldn’t blame me. Someone just told me a ghost roams around the same house I have been made to watch every night. I mean, I don’t believe in spirits or ghosts but I don’t know what to do with this piece of information.

Breathe, Ernesto; I think to myself. I’ve really got to take a breather. Like Max said, I should focus more on guarding the facility than anything else and that’s what I’m going to do else I’m going to lose my mind here, that’s for sure.

“One advice I’ll give you though is,” Arnold says. “In as much as you’d like to know everything about this place, try and stick to guarding it’s surroundings and nothing else,” he gives the same advice as Mr Max but I don’t understand what that’s about, still. So I ask.

“And why’s that? What’s wrong with knowing everything about where I work?”

“Well, nothing,” he laughs. I guess trying to make light of the situation. “You just don’t want to enter his black book, you know,” he laughs some more gets off the bench.

His black book? Hmm. There’s so much to keep up with now my head is spinning.

Arnold leaves saying he has some things to attend to in his bedroom. He leaves me to my thoughts which I don’t think is good for me at the moment. I try my best to take my mind off everything; it’s really odd that I’m starting to accept the existence of ghosts, or evil spirits. Ha! That’s the worst of them. I’m probably just tensed up by Arnold’s story. Besides, that’s simply what it is -a story. Sooner or later, the effects will wear off and I’ll be me again.

I take a brief walk round the facility to prepare myself for the day’s work, even though my shift hasn’t started yet. I spend the day walking to every area in the community; I cover more ground than I did the day before and I discover new buildings this time around. Most of the buildings in the entire community look the same. Tree high duplexes with pillars painted in cream. The open wooden windows revealing the old vintage curtains inside. I see some of the residents hiding behind their windows and staring at me like I’m some wicked ghost. There’s a hint of fear and uneasiness in their eyes and I don’t know why; why it’s so difficult for the people in the community to warm up to me. Or maybe it isn’t just me, maybe it’s new people in general. I wonder what it’ll take to win their heart. Well, at least I’ve won Arnold’s. I guess.

I stay out for a very long time, just watching the ever quiet community. I used to feel somewhat useless in terms of security because nothing really happened around here, until last night when those shots were fired. Now, I’m more than grateful for every second of peace I have. I stay out for a long time just pacing around till sunset comes and I feel my heart trying to betray me; it’s starting to sink due to fear and anxiety. Fear of last night’s event repeating itself. But I won’t let it get the best of me. I summon all of the courage I’ll need and I head back to the facility. Sunlight returns to it’s base, allowing the dark clouds reign once again.

I head inside the house to check up on the residents before assuming my position at the entrance and I do this room by room. The first room I stop by is the retired carpenter’s. I don’t go in, I just stand by his door and I find him in his wheelchair, facing the window and backing the entrance, but somehow he knows I’m around. He turns his neck sideways but doesn’t look at me, gratefully. I wouldn’t want to be thinking of the meaning of one of his cold stares again tonight. I see that he is okay and I move to the next room, Arnold’s.

“Hey, you,”

“Hello, Arnold,” I smile reflexively. “Getting ready for bed, I see,”

“You know it,” he laughs as he tucks himself into his sheets.

He struggles a bit with it, the old man, and I am compelled to go help him out even though this is more of Nurse Joy’s work. I wonder where she is. Now that I think about it, I haven’t seen her since tea in the morning.

“Take care of yourself, Ernesto, goodnight,” Arnold says and turns the other way.

There they go again though -those same words. At least, I’ve figured out already that I’m need to take care of myself around here. Makes me wonder how the driver knew too.

“Coincidences, Ernesto,” I whisper under my breathe as I walk out of Arnold’s room. “If you don’t believe in ghosts, at least believe in coincidences,”

I walk up the stairs and find more rooms but there’s this particular one that catches my attention. On the door is a small label that reads ‘Manager’. This must be Mr Max’s room. I wish I was able to meet him today and ask all the questions that consumes my mind. I find that his door is slightly open and I walk towards it to close it shut. When I get to the door, my eyes flash past some of the contents of the room in a millisecond and I’m tempted to take a second glance. I push the door open and it creaks like every other door in this house. Beside his bed is a long shelf of books. I guess it’s true what they say about great people and their books. They all don’t joke with them at all. A huge part of me knows I’m not supposed to be here but there’s something about the room that seems to pull me in. I can’t tell if it’s a good call or a bad one but I answer anyway. I walk to the shelf which looks like it could have most of the answers to my questions. After my third step into the room, the door shuts tight behind me with a loud bang. Even the hair on my skin hears and feels it; they stand erect.

“What on earth are you doing, Ernesto?” I ask myself.

It’s like I came back to my senses after hearing the door close behind me. I grab the door knob and try to turn it to open the door but of course, it doesn’t move. I keep at this for a few more minutes, struggling to get out of the room that becomes very airy all of a sudden. The book pages start to flip angrily, the curtains flutter behind the window, it’s like the entire room is coming alive and coming for me. When I see that the door knob won’t budge, I start to bang on it. It’s better to be saved with humility than to die with my pride. I bang relentlessly, hoping that someone would hear me. I mean, how hard could it be to hear me; the entire place is as quiet as an old graveyard.

“Ernesto,” I hear someone call me.

It’s sounds like it’s coming from inside the room. And it sounds like Mr Max.

“Max?” I ask.

“Ernesto,” I hear my name again.

There’s a mix of anger and pity in it. Oh, I’ve got to be losing my mind. There’s no one in this room, I’ve got to be hearing things. I crouch on the floor with my hands covering my ears as I try to shut out the odd voice.

“There’s no one here, calm your nerves,” I say repeatedly as I rock back and forth on the floor.

I do this for a few more seconds and I hear someone call my name again. But this time the voice is different; it’s a female’s. I look up only to see Nurse Joy standing by the door which is now open. I have never been so glad to see the young woman.

“What are you doing on the floor, Ernesto?” She asks.

I don’t know how to answer. I heard voices? No, way.

“I was just saying a short prayer,” I answer. At least, it’s not completely a lie.

“I should return to my post,”

“Yeah,” she says and moves away for my to pass her by.

“Ernesto,” she calls over her shoulder. “You should listen to people’s advice. They only try to help you when they offer advice,” she says and shuts the door. Then leaves me on the corridor.

She’s damn right. I don’t think I want any more heartaches. If what Arnold said about the reason for the firing every night is true, then I should just leave it be and focus on my own job here. I’ll just have to find a way to accept and adjust to the firings at night. As long as nothing happens to me. It’s a weird house alright, but at least I’m alive. Where there’s life, there’s hope….I hope.