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It was the smallest of noises, high and meek, but Antonio knew he would have heard it from anywhere within the house. A light pop and a crisp crack, followed by his own resigned sigh before he set the plate he was washing into the rack. He knew what he would see before he turned around, but he allowed himself a small tsk of annoyance at the sight of it, the bottle of tinto still wobbling gently on the marble work surface as a crack spread from its base.
Drying his hands on his shirt, he marched to the fractured bottle and picked it up, clamping a damp cloth to the underside and muttering under his breath. The wine had already begun to spread across the kitchen counter and now seeped into the white cloth, slicking his palm as he applied pressure. The cracks were spreading, but he was far too practised at this now, already heading for the back door and tossing the bottle into the trash with a depressing clatter. He was left staring at the stained strip of fabric, soaked through with crimson, knowing his hand would be just as red beneath it. It always was when this happened.
He set to wiping down the counter, idly speaking to the empty kitchen.
“I have plenty of bottles of water, my friend,” he looked around with a tired smirk. “Why do you always have to go for the Vino?”
There was no response. There never was.
The cloth was thrown out too. Bitter experience had taught him that the stains would never come out. Still, they wouldn’t break him down.
He supposed that he could just give up drinking wine. Or perhaps he could take up drinking white instead. The though put a chill up his spine and made him grimace. No. Death first.
With the dishes done and the unpleasantness with the wine taken care of, it was time to tackle the hallway. Never a dull moment.
~
Six. Six small scorched holes in the wall today. They were clearly losing their edge.
“I swear there were eight last time.” He said out loud as he mixed the bucket of plaster. The little puncture wounds in the walls were an annoyance, but never a huge problem. When they popped up they were shallow enough that it was simply a case of filling them in again and giving them a quick lick of paint the next day. They did like to keep him busy, after all.
Dust was caking the walls out here now and that was something he was sure he couldn’t put down to his house guests. With everything else he had most likely just forgotten to take a duster to things.
When he stepped pack from the plastering, though, he frowned. It was an uneven layer of dirt, broken up and allowing pristine glimpses of painted wall to show through in some patches. He took another step back and got a full view of it.
Six silhouettes flanked by grime. Six men kneeling facing the wall. Six men crowned with holes through the head.
A new coat of paint. That’s what this corridor needed. Antonio nodded to himself. Teal. He was thinking teal.
~
The fire burned low while Antonio sipped his wine, taken from the reserve rack that his house guests never seemed to want to touch. It didn’t put out much heat, but then he didn’t really need it to, the night proving to be as mild as it ever was. No, he appreciated the fire for that comforting dark scent of the burning logs, coiling in his nostrils and putting him back to those thoughts of sitting under a blanket in winter while he waited for sleep to claim him. Rodrigo played on an old vinyl record, turned down low.
The wood hissed. A constant purr of flames. The occasional rich pop like the barking of a rifle cracking in a still night. The logs jostled and settled, eaten by the fire.
Enough of it could consume anything. Wood, stone, buildings, people, histories and futures. Yesterday could be preserved by burning the tomorrow of thousands.
He jolted awake, one leg kicking out and sending his slipper sailing against the far wall.
The fire was long dead, leaving only the most tenacious embers glowing a deep red in an ocean of ash. His eyes adapted to the gloom and he saw his slipper planted on the rug against the far wall, right at the base of the cracks.
They’d been far more dramatic years before, brickwork beyond exposed like the bones of his house laid bare, flaking paint and damp timbers creaking with every passing of a draft. It had taken a long time to fix it. A lot of hard work, too. There was still a telltale crack running all the way up his living room wall, but it barely even raised a question from those who saw it these days.
He left the slipper where it was and slumped out of the room, half-heartedly swiping at the record players power to stop its idle crackling.
He limped up the stairs in the thick darkness, guiding himself by the wooden handrail, lifting his hand the second he felt an unfamiliar texture. Painful experience had taught him that nails and splinters were prone to rising from the varnished wood when the lights were off. In the morning the whole thing would be perfectly smooth, of course, and all that would be left would be the lingering sting in his fingers.
He crept into his room, dropping into the bed fully dressed and clumsily kicking off his remaining slipper, letting it thud softly to the floor.
He lay there hoping for sleep to take him once again. He waited in the night, listening he creak of the house settling, of the floorboards as weight and pressure pressed against them. He heard the footsteps at the edges of his bedroom and the hushed conversations, the begging, the accusations. He felt the touch of all those eyes on him and lingered in the darkness, waiting for a new day to start.
Waiting to do it all again.