The house lay
forgotten at the end of the road
Where no children, no pets
or postman would go
The windows were
broken and the doors creaked on rust
And the carpets were
carpeted in layers of dust
Whoever had lived
there was long lost today
Whoever had lived
there, well no one could say
Then one morning a van
trundled by
Stopping beneath a
perfect blue sky
And movers moved
swiftly with boxes and chairs
Each shivering faintly
at forgotten nightmares
They worked as quickly
as working men could
And unloaded the truck
onto bare boards of wood
The neighbourly people
wondered and frowned
As word spread through
every café in town
Someone had bought
that house long forgotten
Where dust coughed and
spluttered and all things lay rotten
Someone was coming quite
soon to move in
Who could it be? Was
it a her? Or a him?
The answer came
shortly as a red car arrived
With its owner slow stretching
from his long lonely drive
A man it was, a man
named O’Toole
Who up until recently
had head-mastered a school
O’Toole was a man with
no child or wife
Who’d worked every day
and called it a life
O’Toole was a barrel
chested man of age sixty-four
Who had woken one
morning and decided “no more”
He abandoned his one
bedroom house in the city
And decided to move somewhere
both quiet and pretty
And after two weeks of
searching he knew what to do
He’d buy an old house
and make it brand new
And now here he stood
on this perfect blue day
Looking at abandonment,
loss and decay
He rolled up his
sleeves and picked up his tools
And unloaded planks
and wire in spools
Inside the yard where
the grass grew dry and thin
He gazed at the house and
eyes gazed back at him
That first day he
threw open all of the doors
And with a new broom
he swept the old floors
Explosions of dust
burst in clouds from the house
Triggering sneezes
from a rat, cat and mouse
He swept and he swept ‘til
the dust was all gone
“I’ll have this house
new” he thought “before long”
That night he slept on
the bed that he’d bought
Dreaming of classes
that he’d recently taught
Around him the old house
creaked and adjusted
To being clean swept
and so thoroughly dusted
And up in the attic
deep in the night
Six pairs of eyes
blinked and turned left to right
The eyes belonged to
children unknown and unfed
As these were children
who were sadly long dead
These were children
who’d had short lives of no care
And who one cold
bitter winter had been abandoned right there
They’d died early that
winter with the saddest belief
That the saddest of
lives garner no ounce of relief
The six children, half
girls and half boys
Remained in the house
and spun dust into toys
As the windows cracked
and the garden overgrew
The children continued
and the world never knew
They stayed at their
ages, from two up to twelve
The youngest the boys
and the oldest the girls
The next morning
O’Toole awoke and exclaimed
“Today that garden
will bloom once again”
He breakfasted on
coffee and sausage and eggs
Chewing each mouthful
and drinking to dregs
And as he was about to
take a shovel and set to his work
He saw that his home again
sunken in dirt
He frowned and he
pondered and picked up his broom
And chased away dust again
from each buried room
Had it blown in at
midnight from the garden outside?
Swirling and whirling
as he dreamed safe inside?
He swept and he swept
and then placed glass in frames
Of the windows so to
stop this occurring again
That night he dreamed
of classes once more
Reading stories to
children sat on the floor
And as he slept three
boys age two, four and six
Whipped up a perfect
dust and dirt mix
And three girls age twelve,
eight and ten
Spread candy floss
clouds of dust out again
So the next day was
filled with dusty disdain
O’Toole swept and
swept and swept yet again
And later that
afternoon he repaired every door
And sealed them all
fast and firm to be sure
With everything closed
and the dust chased away
O’Toole, with
satisfaction, called it a day
But that night instead
of retreating to sleep
O’Toole read his book and
heard the house creak
And for reasons, if
asked, he could never explain
O’Toole cleared his
throat and strongly exclaimed
“Marley was dead, to
begin with”
and heard the house gasp
As six long dead
children heard someone reading at last
O’Toole read A
Christmas Carol from commencement to end
Then yawned and sighed
and slumbered again
And the children from
the attic thrilled and imagined
The ghosts and the
characters Charles Dickens had fashioned
And the dust that each
night regathered
No longer came in and
no longer mattered
O’Toole the next day
sandpapered the floors
Sandpapered the walls
and sandpapered the doors
He prepared the
surfaces and started to paint
In shades blue and of
yellow he felt were quaint
That night he lit a
fire in the main room downstairs
And settled himself in
an old leather chair
He opened a new book
and once more read
To his invisible
audience of children long dead
He read of Hobbits and
a dragon named Smaug
Reading each page
luxuriantly loud
And as the tale ended
and he fell to his ease
The children stayed
with him, unable to leave
O’Toole dreamt that
night of the wife he’d not found
Since his only true
love had been placed underground
She’d died aged just
twenty in a lake in the spring
A lake where O’Toole
was to propose with a ring
He’d come back to the
world broken and shattered
As without his one
love whatever else mattered?
He lay in his torpor
bereft and unclaimed
Hating himself and
gathering blame
He thought of her
dreams and made them his own
And he realised a
future his true love had shown
A teacher and wife she
had hoped to be
“So a wifeless teacher
is what comes for me”
The house was painted
when he woke from his pain
Softly crying Pippa,
that long cherished name
He blinked away tears
as he wandered his home
Heart broken and
lonely but yet not alone
For right before him
at the foot of the stair
A two-year-old boy picked
his nose there
O’Toole crouched down
and looked at the boy
Who smiled right back
with unrestrained joy
He ran to the books
piled up on the floor
Clapped with his hands
and waved to the door
Shortly thereafter he
threw one to O’Toole
Who sat on the floor
and knew what to do
The two year old
listened enrapt at the tale
Of a beautiful white uncatchable
whale
And his sisters and
brothers unseen at the door
Listened to each word
still starving for more
The house was ignored
as the day turned to dusk
And the boy fell to
sleep as two year olds must
And now O’Toole’s
thoughts turned to the Police
To those in authority
to whom he must speak
And he rose and went
for his phone now to find
When something
occurred that altered his mind
Outside the room five
children all stared
Nervous and hopeful
and spikey of hair
The eldest girl
related their sad sorry tale
And hearing O’Toole
turned uncomfortably pale
As she spoke of
starvation and a cold desperate death
O’Toole saw a puff of
his own frozen breath
“And then you came and
our home wasn’t dark”
And O’Toole found
warmth spread in his heart
The next day the
children were eagerly waiting
To see where a new day
may take them
Where they had been
fleshless and boneless and gone
Now they were vibrant
and laughing in song
Their memories of
death fast faded from mind
Until memories of this
morning were all they could find
O’Toole as well found
his memories were hazed
And it never occurred
to him that life may be crazed
He worked on the house
with his family of six
Painting and
plastering and gathering sticks
Till the house was
perfect but yet not complete
The walls all a glow with
the rooms warm and neat
One evening O’Toole
sat in front of the flames
Reading The Iron Man
to the children again
None of them flinched
as the front door swung wide
And Pippa softly
stepped from the out to inside
She kissed O’Toole as
his story he paused
And the children,
delighted, burst into applause
Pippa smiled and
whispered “I do”
And O’Toole gazed and
said “I love you”
Pippa sat on the arm
of the chair
As the fire crackled
and the children all stared
“Read” she whispered
and O’Toole softly started
Feeling warm and alive
and not broken hearted
There is no greater
love than love that’s well read
With each night “story
time” being words that are said
Children grow
fast and soon read alone
In the forest of tales
their parents have grown
O’Toole never knew he
had long passed away
He just read to his
children, and his wife, every day
The house was forgotten
by all still alive
And no one ever sought
to peer deep inside
No one that was but
children long lost
Who’d been too much a
burden or too much a cost
They gazed through the
windows and came through the doors
And found safety,
found warmth and stories…..evermore
