One Phrase Can Change Lives

Sometimes I wonder about the people on my street. How are they coping in their houses? Is it good, is it bad? What’s behind their door? I talk to many people about this fascination. My mum says it’s that I think too much about other people’s lives. My friends say it’s because I worry too much about the world and that I just need to relax. But I know exactly how this came around and so does Andy. It involves a cat, a creepy door, and a really dumb game.

Andy is my best friend, but he’s also like my brother. I’ve known him since the first day of kindergarten and ever since we’ve never been apart. But that’s beside the point, there’s this house that lives as if under a constant shadow as if the sun keeps reaching for those walls that continue shrinking away. No one has ever seen the lady that lives inside all anyone knows about her is that she owns about twenty cats.

My fascination on people’s lives behind closed doors all started when Andy and I were playing this rather silly game. Someone had to ride a skateboard down the street and the other tried to hit the one riding the skateboard off with a ball. It was my turn. The ball flew past Andy’s head as if in slow motion it landed dead center in the middle of the animal-infested yard, only a few feet away from the door, which was the grey of unburnished silver; dull and spotted with years of water damage. In other words old and creepy. The thought of scheming to get that ball back wasn’t an option, so Andy had other plans. He came sprinting up the pathway with such a spring in his step that he almost looked like a gazelle. He came towards me and without questioning jumped the fence with a single bound. “Jake!” he screamed, “You better come see this.” As the color drained from his face I knew I did something terrible.

I slid into the yard unenthused to see where this was heading. Andy wasn’t smiling like usual and as I approached I knew why. Right next to the ball was a bundle of grey fur that lay unconscious and lifeless.

“How is that even possible!” I screamed feeling the anxiety creeping up my throat.

“One in a million shot I’ll say,” Andy replied.

The door creaked open and a lady with fingers wrinkly and dead, hair whiter than snow and her teeth well, they were non-existent. It didn’t take her long to put two and two together though her age. Her gaze fell like an act of violence, a glare to stop the heart. Without a word she slipped back into the house, then there was yelling. At first, the old lady’s voice dragged on in a constant stream of that would have had soap in my mouth for days.

All I could think about was the blood on my hands I had been foolish and dumb. I couldn’t get it out of my head, I had killed a living animal today. Andy seemed to notice my discomfort as we stood awkwardly in the front yard, neither of us willing to say a word. When out of the blue something strange happened and to this day no one believes this. Multiple things happened at once. There was another voice, a man’s one from inside the house. The door swung open just long enough for me to get a glimpse of the inertia. A spiral staircase leading to god knows where an old piano sitting deserted in the corner and an old man soaking up the limited rays of the sun.

The door shut with such force that it knocked me back in the reality of the dead cat. The woman rushed over to us with a bowl of milk in hand. She held the cat with care and attention. As she held it the cat began to purr, she briskly picked it up and hurried to the door. With one final turn, she locked eyes with me and said words that changed my life forever.

“You need to look further than what’s on the outside, you need to look at what’s inside the door”

That abrupt sentence made me more aware of people’s home lives and their situations, it turned my life around.

So that’s why I tell you this story of how you helped me become a better person. That one sentence changed my life. I’m here to say thank you, and sorry for any heartache I or anyone on this street has given you.