Tuesday 10 March 2009

That Ordinary House 1 'That House'

That house. That ordinary house. Oh how ordinary that house was. Its normalness, its story, could be told in about one hundred words:
"Young married couple buy two bedroom war service cottage in Brisbane; two sons are born eighteen months apart; both attend the local parish school at the end of the street and then spend eleven more years at a Christian Brothers school a bus ride away. Father works in smallgoods and later as a travelling salesman fininshing his working life as a postie. Mother stays at home, looks after the kids; later she works part time as an accounting machinist. Holidays are spent at the beach. Kids leave home. Retirement for the ageing couple is fullfilling and busy. Wife dies. Husband continues to live in the war service home until he suffers a stroke. He sees his days out in an aged care home. The house lies empty. Much loved father dies of old age. The sons inherit the house."

And now, here I am sitting on the front step of the Moolabar Street home waiting for a prospective buyer to turn up to look through this ordinary house and make me an offer.
One owner, one family, one lifetime; a store of stories waiting for the next generation of lives to be lived under this roof.

2 comments:

Leithal said...

Beautiful little Hat. Just beautiful.

Queen of the Tea Cosies said...

Ditto Little Hat. Ditto.