Water of the Sundown
Short story split into three parts.
This tale was originally in spanish, my native language.
This story tries to convey feelings of nostalgia and loneliness, monotony and unease, and how the dark stages of life have important things to tell us.
Summary:
You decided to go spend some time living alone in an old house. The previous host is retiring, so he will greet you and tell you the rules of the place. You may expect a reward for your stay in the house, your spirit has something to accomplish in such solitude.
Part 1/3
I arrived at half-past six in the evening. After a long walk along an old path, I finally glimpsed an old wooden house and approached it, clearly sensing that this was my destination. The house stood in the middle of a glade in a dense forest of tall pine trees, atop a recondite hill ignored by all footpaths. As soon as I saw the house, I noticed a man standing on the balcony, gazing ahead with serene expectation, surely waiting for my arrival.
The house seemed very old; I couldn't say for certain, but I believed that the antique wooden building was over two centuries old. The facade looked elegant and grand, but it was quite ruined by the passage of time, darkened and dusty. The white paint was now yellowish and fractured, almost shattered, and the wood was so aged and harsh that the house appeared sad and abandoned by time. The tall, thin windows were dirty, and thick grey curtains blocked any view of the interior. The house had three floors, but only the top floor had a balcony. There stood the man, a gentleman with a friendly demeanor, who, after watching me, raised his hand in greeting, smiled, and went inside to receive me.
"Good afternoon," he kindly said after opening the main entrance door and inviting me in.
Inside, the sunlight struggled to penetrate the curtains, casting the interior in a dull gray light. Near the curtains, diminutive dust particles floated slowly. The house felt paralyzed, almost dead. The old wooden furniture was empty and covered in dust, as if abandoned for decades. There was no trace of activity—no stains, garbage, or dirt to suggest recent inhabitants. I walked around for a few minutes, glancing through the rooms: a kitchen with an old wood oven, a long dining room decorated with dusty, antiquated vases, a poorly lit parlor, a couple of isolated, shadowy bathrooms, narrow halls, empty furniture scattered here and there, and a pervasive stillness that filled every corner.
"Well, accompany me upstairs; I'll show you the room," he said. He was an adult man, five or six years older than me, I guessed. "Excuse me for not introducing myself. I'm Mr. Bye. I'm glad you've arrived; I've been tired of being here for a long time now."
Part 2/3
I closed and locked the door, knowing I wouldn't be opening it again for a long time. "The longer, the better," I thought to myself. The house was already quite gloomy, and night was about to fall with all its weight. Following the instructions, I went upstairs to the room and closed the door. I opened my small suitcase and settled my belongings. I gazed through the window for the last time that day, and the light finally faded from the sky before my quiet stare. The time to close the curtains and shutters had arrived, so I could light a couple of candles in peace.
In a corner stood a small table and a chair. I placed the candles and had my dinner: bread, some beef, and grape juice. After finishing, I took my notes and papers and sat by the side table near the window, where I read and wrote for a couple of hours. The tiny table clock I had brought indicated half-past ten, so I decided it was time to put out the candles and go to sleep.
The next day, I woke up and got up calmly. I lifted the curtains and opened the shutter, then I opened the door to the little balcony. Just as Mr. Bye had told me, there at my feet were some supplies wrapped in old but very clean white cloth, along with small glass bottles of milk and juice. For breakfast, I had some cookies, bread, milk, and fruit. I saved the eggs, cereals, greens, and juices for later meals. I returned the cloth and bottles to the balcony as Mr. Bye had shown me.
A bit later, I went downstairs. I spent the whole day walking quietly, roaming around every room. The sun was strong outside and despite the thick dusty curtains, the sunlight broke through easily, allowing me to examine every corner. The windows were not to be opened, so the interior remained completely silent. I could only hear my own footsteps, which produced a very faint echo within the house. After a while, there was nothing left for me to see; all that remained was silence. Time passed slowly, without a trace of activity or life. I had become familiar with the furniture and old ornaments, empty jars and vases, and dusty mirrors where I disliked seeing my own reflection. I wondered how long it had been since anyone lived in such a house... Or perhaps no one ever had?
In the afternoon, I went upstairs to my balcony. At least there I could listen to the soft buzz of the forest and distant bird songs. When it started getting dark, I decided to take a last walk of the day around the house. Everything was already gray; the sun's rays were vanishing, and everything was as silent as always, if not more so, I thought. I stepped beside the window in the dining room, where some black chairs surrounded a table with an empty candle holder on it. I stood there, gazing outside through the thick curtain, lost in my thoughts. Quite late, I realized that night had arrived. I turned and looked back inside, where I could still glimpse shapes thanks to the last remnants of light, but the shadows were already too dense. "I should have returned to my room long ago," I thought. I knew it was not the time to be there. I felt a cold shiver run through my body and fearfully walked back to my room, not hurrying my steps but moving slowly to cause the least possible noise. When I finally reached my room, I carefully closed the door and dined hastily. I wrote my notes for a short time and soon after went to bed and slept.
The next day, I woke up unhurriedly and spent the day as I had the previous one, though I spent less time going downstairs and walking around the house. Despite the lack of distractions, and even when I pondered if the house kept some secrets in hidden corners, I was unwilling to touch anything, just as I had been instructed. Curiosity should never take me too far; it was not even a good idea to move the chairs, let alone open drawers or search inside the furniture. That day, at nightfall, I returned to my room on time. I didn't want to repeat what had happened the night before.
In the ensuing days, I reduced the time I spent walking in the house. It was better to stay in my room; at least there I didn't have to worry about not touching anything. I distracted myself by looking from the balcony, meditating, writing, and re-reading many stacks of notes. Days passed that way until one day I realized I had lost count. I checked my small calendar but couldn't determine the day. Then I recalled that before departing, Mr. Bye had stored in his bag a bunch of tiny notes with handwritten numbers. Those were undoubtedly calendars crafted by him, as he surely experienced the same confusion I was facing. So I started making my own. I corrected them a couple of times, guided by the direction of the sun and the seasons, which passed repeatedly, just like the days. My daily habits had become invariant, and I thought to myself that I resembled one of those spectres from haunted house tales, condemned to repeat the same routine for hundreds and hundreds of years.
I knew well that I'd been there for a long time, some years without a doubt. I didn't dare to recount the days, and I kept the calendar sheets in a drawer that I avoided revising often. One day, the batteries of my little tabletop clock ran out. I crafted a tiny sundial with paper and a toothpick, which I placed on the balcony every day. But I eventually lost that habit and simply renounced keeping track of the hours.
One day, I decided to walk around the house, as I hadn't gone downstairs for a long time. Whether it was due to boredom or a lack of understanding of what could go wrong, I dared to snoop in the drawers, something I'd been told never to attempt. I opened and closed a few drawers in the drawing room, the main hall, and a couple of bedrooms. Finding nothing, I stopped insisting. Almost immediately, a subtle but piercing feeling of guilt invaded me. I regretted disturbing the funereal stillness of the house. That night, after dining and writing my final notes of the day, I went to bed. I blew out the little candle on the side table and closed my eyes. Although I still felt some regret for what had happened, I sought to remain calm and not think about it anymore. Slowly and serenely, I began to fall asleep. But suddenly and terribly, I heard something that sounded like soft slaps against the door. I opened my eyes straight away, paralyzed with terror, knowing exactly what I had done wrong. I did not dare to move a single finger, and I tried to breathe slowly despite the fear. There were two or three hits, spaced less than a minute apart. Moments later, it sounded as if someone was trying to turn the knob to open the door, but I had closed and locked it, as always. Then, a loud and hard Pow! was heard, which I perceived as a clear warning. After that, I heard nothing else.
In the following days, that incident greatly obsessed and frightened me. I didn't even want to go downstairs. I didn't want it to be repeated in any way. But what had that been? Was there someone else in the house? Someone who arrived every night and left at daybreak?
Part 3/3
For many days, I sought to forget that mysterious incident. I let time pass tranquilly and followed my daily routine, resigning myself to think of it as a warning that I shouldn't investigate further. Nonetheless, as the days went on, I began to sketch in my mind the plans of a small act of curiosity. So one day, a long time after the night of the hits on the door, my fear had subsided enough for my curiosity to reassert itself. That day I carried out my usual routine. By night, I dined well, wrote a bit, and put out the candle, but I didn't go to bed. Instead, I got close to the door, prepared to listen, perhaps all night if necessary, to the arrival of those who apparently occupied the house during the hours in which I usually slept. I put my ear close to the door and waited patiently. But I never heard the house's main door opening downstairs. Instead, I noticed how slowly, bit by bit, the unmistakable sound of footsteps with that familiar attenuated echo became clearer, there on the lower floors. I also heard slight murmurs, sounding like dry, gray voices without timbre, but they said things I couldn't recognize. There was no trace of light through the crack of the door. Scared, I went back to bed and slowly lay down.
Days passed, perhaps I had already stayed there for many years. I thought maybe it was time to depart and leave that to someone else. But I was incapable of deciding; routine had petrified me, and that lonely inertia was the only thing for which I thought I had energy. I felt submerged in a circle of monotony and loneliness from which I did not have the courage to escape. Furthermore, in the deepest caverns of my thoughts, the unease about the mysterious events of the house kept me tied there. I couldn't feel liberated until I knew what was occurring.
One day, a long time later, once I'd already lost all count, and each step had turned into a gray and slow habit, I decided that it was time to find a definitive answer to what that place was hiding. My writing sheets had run out, I had no clock, no calendar, nor anything that would allow me to focus my thoughts on something other than the enigma of the lower floors at night. It was night, and as I'd done on that already bygone occasion, I stood by the room's door to wait for the time when the noises appeared. I waited nervously, until finally, those vague sounds began to reach my ear. As I had planned, I prepared to open the door to get out quietly and see once and for all what or who was causing the footsteps and voices.
I managed to turn the handle in perfect silence. I pushed the door a few millimeters until a space opened through which I could look at the corridor and the staircase. Everything was darkness, but the sounds—those sounds—came to me more clearly. I was sure, I could feel it. I decided to get out at last, and as I pushed the door further, the hinges and wood clattered sharply, emitting a noise that seemed to echo throughout the house. The voices suddenly ceased, the footsteps too. I thought that those who were making the noises, whoever they were, were nearby downstairs and had heard the noise. Almost paralyzed with anguish, I managed to step back, close the door as softly as I could, slide the latch, and went immediately to my bed, full of terror. I clogged my ears with the wax from the extinguished candle and closed my eyes tightly until, by fortune, I fell asleep.
The mere idea of repeating that bitter experience terrified me. But I was sure I wasn't going to leave until I found an answer, whatever it was. Once again, days passed. Although I had no way of knowing the exact time, I knew with certainty that I had surpassed Rupert's record, also that of the inhabitant before him, and by far, there was no doubt.
The days passed and passed again, without answers, desires, courage, or any more curiosity to seek answers. My life there had become dark, rigid, slow, silent—as silent as the days that passed me by. I rarely even opened the window anymore, limiting myself to essential activities. Sometimes I dreamed at night; they were not nightmares or threatening dreams, but just anodyne dreams, which didn't even seem to let themselves be remembered. Except for one occasion, which came as a sign: one night, I dreamed that I was thirsty and wanted to go out, go out and drink fresh water.
After that night, I noticed how a tiny point of light, a diminutive ember in my heart, reappeared, one that hadn't been extinguished and that all the dust my soul had accumulated in that house hadn't been able to suffocate. It was a last breath of will in me, a last wind of courage that slowly grew to a substantial volume, and I didn't want to lose it. So, after some days devising a new plan in my mind and mustering strength, I was finally about to undertake a last resolution to my sojourn in that place.
One day, at last, I dared to remember that very distant first day in the house when the night took me by surprise on the lower floors. Yes, it was that, just that—the way, I thought. Thus, when the time came, after having had dinner a little earlier than usual, I went down around sunset, reached the dining room, and looked outside at the forest through the same window through which I had done it the first time, waiting for the night to come to me, prepared to face all the specters or ghostly frights that arose, determined to wait undaunted until dawn. Meanwhile, I meditated and brought to mind the memories I had kept of those long years in the house. Weren't they so few, and so many at the same time? Suddenly, when I noticed that the last fragments of light faded away, I looked into my soul. Was there already fear in it?
*****
The door shut behind me. Twelve years later, I walked outside the house. I left with my little luggage in the direction of the forest, towards the same footpath by which I had come, which now seemed so blurred that it was almost impossible to distinguish. The orange sky signaled that the sun was approaching its set once again. Then I turned back to contemplate the facade one last time. On the balcony was already him, the new inhabitant, who, upon watching me, waved his arm in farewell while smiling. I returned his smile and wave.
"As personal advice," I had said just before leaving, "I will tell you that it is worth it to abide here for several years, the more the merrier. You may get bored after a while, but if you endure the tedium, the reward will be enormous."
I went along the path until I crossed the forest, down the slope. I was already moving away from the place when the flight of a little bird made me want to look back one last time. The thick veil of the forest now made it utterly impossible to see the house. But near a stream that flowed there, tiny rodents ran around, while a placid turtle drank the crystal-clear and fresh water of the sundown.
END
