Uncle

Part 1 of a short story in progress...

The house dwarfs everything in the street.

It stands tall and majestic in the middle of the lane, surrounded by badly trimmed hedges and lush green trees in its enormous front lawn. The house isn’t noticed much by the people who make a regular visit to that street. The lone three residents, who all get up at sunrise every morning to walk their dogs, pass by it without a second glance. The milk boy and the paperboy ignore the house on their early morning rounds. They know nothing about the house, as they are recent residents. Unlike me. I know everything there is to know about the house.

The house is owned by a man whose name I do not happen to know. But I remember that we used to fondly call him Uncle. He was a fat man, with a big round belly. When I was about six, I used to run really fast and crash into his belly. He was quite a funny man and I remember him buying us balloons and pieces of chalk for hopscotch in the nearby pound shop. He would then play hopscotch with us, every Friday evening. I used to love Friday evenings. If there was anything I loved more than Friday evenings, it was his house. It was huge. Another game which we used to love to play, hide and seek. It was usually very easy to hide somewhere near ‘Uncle’, as we called him, as he was so burly. But it was not necessary, as there were a million other places to hide around the house. There were five floors and ten bedrooms in all and we kids were allowed to roam anywhere we wanted. We used to make a mess, but Uncle never minded. He had a cook too, by the name of Pete. Pete made the best chocolate-chip cookies. He hated us kids, because we had no table manners, but we used to love him. Uncle couldn’t even boil an egg on his own. Sometimes, he used to invite our families for dinner. Pete would then make the best chicken ever on the planet. Our mums and dads would wash it down with a very red looking liquid while we washed it down with plain water. I once took a sip of the red liquid from my mom’s glass when she wasn’t looking. It tasted unpleasant and bitter. The only person in the room who saw it was Pete. But he never said a word. He just sort of pursed his lips when I looked at him to show his disapproval.

And then one day, Uncle disappeared. We looked everywhere for him, but in vain. We rang his doorbell a million times that week, but Pete seemed to have vanished too. We eventually lost hope and gave up trying to locate Uncle entirely after just a few days. I never lost heart, though. I was determined to find out where my favorite person in the world had disappeared to. I used to wait for him at his doorstep every evening after school, until my mom literally used to drag me inside. I used to bang on the door, willing it to open almost magically. I even tried ringing the doorbell of every single house in the lane to ask if anyone had seen him. No one had.

We shifted house then, and I almost forgot about him for a few days. I lost all my old friends and made new ones. Years went by, and I realized I hadn’t thought about Uncle at all for the past two or three years.

And then one day, when I was returning home from school, I saw Uncle standing on my doorstep.

Author's Note

Does it make you want to read more?

Reviews

[Praveeta]

A lovely write and an enjoyable read.

[Vaishali Roopesh]

Oh thank youuu! x

[Praveeta]

You are welcome.

[Gobinder Singh Dhindsa]

Wow.. Nice writing. Keep writing. If possible then Do u read my writing Anguish?

[Vaishali Roopesh]

Thanks a lot for your review! I've read and reviewed your poem 'Anguish' :)
Cheers x