Leaving the House

Uriah, an introverted and unconventional beauty, cared very little for either of the houses she lived in. The one on Montrose Street had doors that didn’t quite seal and drafty single pane windows with paint for caulk that left her wont to visit friends frequently in the winter or otherwise wear outerwear indoors. The other dwelling, which she most despised, was the cage that housed her very soul. Striking and alluring to the eyes of men, envied by as many women, Uriah herself had even taken note of the curvaceousness of her breasts and hips as desirable physical structures. Never the less the house of skin and bone held her hostage and was subpar to her real body.

While her friends and acquaintances chattered about their lovers and fashions, her colleagues rambled about deadlines and expanding market share, her family croons about days gone by—her only thought was escape. She managed to sneak out of the house of flesh for a few minutes at a time a feat most have never considered let alone accomplished, but still she needed more. Lasting freedom was all that could satiate her.

Rise, commute, work, lunch, work, commute again, friends, and then back to Montrose Street... to escape.

Uriah, a young woman vexed by the broken people and unsettling events the day always brought. She set her jaw and climbed the steps to the damp old house’s second story bathroom. The small room lent itself to the perspective she needed to initiate her escape attempt. She must force her mind to see the three-dimensional world around her as two-dimensional. Having the walls so close to her face in the narrow confinement of the lavatory enabled her to do this with ease. Eyes closed and braced for new reality, she raised her eyelids slowly to see the world around her transformed into a paper-thin curtain before her eyes.

The fleshy walls of her most hated house have dried becoming brittle flaky exterior paint. At this she shivered. Her light began to breach its outer edifice and relief rolled off her like water vapor off of dry ice. Arms extended overhead with long and delicate fingers she reached to the follicle-shingled roof of her earthly domicile, feeling for the gap in the covering. When she feels radiating coolness she begins to presses and peel.

The light of her astral form is freed and races to the heavenly realm rendering her flesh more a candle than a house for her soul. With her physical form still tethered at its foundation to the cool tile of the bathroom floor on Montrose St. and her astral form fully tethered to the celestial plane, she sighed. The restful satisfaction was so great she ceased to unwrap herself lingering for a moment in that initial breath of life.

Resuming her task she tore away large tiles and planks of the remaining earthen vessel. Upon exiting, her house of tissue was left in a pile on the tile breathing the scarcest of breaths with great subtlety. If anyone came into the bathroom now they would surely call for an ambulance thinking her petrified to death.

Surrounded by dense iridescent white light Uriah existed as one with her source, God. In the tangible illumination was total wisdom, contentment and joy. Both her forms on the physical and astral plane started to weep. The deluxe shanty on the bathroom tile began to writhe as Uriah returned to it ruefully but at peace.

She could not escape her house arrest every time she tried, but sometimes was often enough, if the only alternative was not at all.

___

On a morning walk to work while sun had yet to kiss the eastern Philadelphia sky Uriah was lost in thought and staring off into space when a bare breasted transgendered prostitute yelled at her.

“Whatchoo looking at hoe? Jealous! I think she jealous! Don’t hate ‘cause I’ll take ya man. Scary hoe’s always jelly…”

The tirade continued and showcased the nearly nude sex worker’s extensive vocabulary of expletives and insults. Emotion might have flooded out of Uriah’s house if her roof weren’t so tightly affixed and exit points so secure. She kept it in, her anguish over the many tragedies that must have befallen a person to leave them in such a state, her frustration with a world so full to the brim with evils that are both actions and reactions, and her irritation at being harassed. She shed no tears and made no response.

___

In the office an angry co-worker violently struck another but both dismissed Uriah’s admonishment.

___

While waiting for the train home a man in the subway edged closer and closer to her while licking his lips and spitting over his shoulder. He boarded the train so closely behind her that Uriah was confident he was touching her. She became certain of the fact when he pressed his groin against her fingers as she held on to the handrail between them.

___

Upon arriving home a frien-emy in the habit of asking for money tried to shake her down for three hundred dollars, needed rent money that was needlessly spent on lavish trinkets.

___

Finally she made it back home to Montrose Street. Yet she was still exposed to the world. Inside as she sat on the sofa a newscaster on TV painted a bleak and lopsided picture of a murdered and unarmed black man in police custody.

___

Uriah, stricken so much day in and day out she doesn’t have the strength to leave either of her houses. She clutched her heart at the shooting pains there. The heart attack she went to the hospital for was laughed off by a callous nurse as a panic attack.

Enough is enough Uriah told herself and took time off of work. That night she was hit by a blinding light. Out of the light came and angel and she grabbed hold of him immediately and wrestled with him over the state of the world.

Three days she wrestled the angel until she wore weary and he pinned her at last. The angel called her a thief and stripped her. This isn’t yours!” he said leaning over her and snatching off some previously unseen rotted rag. “You’ve stolen it! And what’s this? Another appropriated article!” he thundered so violently she was certain lightning would follow, snatching at her again.

“You’ve stolen your friend’s bitterness, your colleagues animosity, the prostitutes pain!” he roared again looking about him pointing and revealing every item to her as he said it. “You’ve absconded with the congressman’s lies and made them your tragedies to mourn. You’ve taken on victimhood!” he took her face in his hand inspecting her as he said this.

“You, a victim, of racism, malice and of so many other abuses and slights only Abba knows. A victim, really?”

He gently took his hand away and left her trembling. “Not a survivor or a champion, not more than a conqueror, not His elect but a mere victim. You’re a perfected kleptomaniac."

"You have corrupted your house by filling it with all these vile possessions you so eagerly pilfered. It’s a wonder you haven’t gone blind, your windows are so filthy with this horrid rubbish.”

At this she looked and saw the window panes opaque with grime. She was suddenly unsure of which of her houses she was really in. Had she let the outside get as bad as the inside?

“You sneaking, creeping, burglar! These things don’t belong to you and yet you hoard them all up and pity yourself, the unapologetic pickpocket, for possessing them. You constantly wish to flee the house and yet you don’t realize you’re the one who’s made it such a horrific prison.

This house was not intended as a jail cell but a retreat, for you and Him together. Let this go! Let all of these things go! These battles are not yours, they’re the Lord’s. Would you steal from the Most High, who made you and called you according to His purpose? Steal what He didn’t intend for you and forfeit what He did? Then release what you have stolen at once. ”

At this she crumpled and sobbed with her whole body.

“I’m sorry!” she screamed, “I didn’t mean to steal! I just… can’t—I can’t bear it…” she began to bawl again

“That’s right,” the angel said, “You never could and you never will. And you don’t have to.”

With his last words a hole opened in the roof of her mortal house a cool breeze poured into the breech and filled her. Soothed she stood and took a look around her realizing she could now see from outside herself. She could see her once despised cage for the garden retreat it was intended to be.

For the first time she was alive and untethered to other people's garbage. In the physical sense she returned to her job and her social obligations but in another sense she’d left the world behind completely and never came back. She was incapable of such an act.