A room

We bought our house almost four years ago. We looked at a few in the town we settled in, Youngtown, Arizona. It was the only place were we could afford a single family dwelling other than condos. Now, I know we should have waited, but, oh well.

Most of the places were empty and needed more work that we could afford to put into them. One place had a horrible feeling to it. A spiritual oppression. Even Jonas, our realtor felt it and mentioned it before I did. I don't know if everybody has the ability to discern the feel or spirit of a place. I do. This place just grabbed me by the throat had squeezed.

I don't remember where it is, what it looked like, nothing I was interested in even if it didn't feel like Satan's fold-out couch. I hate to think what happened there.

There was one room, however, that was different. A different feel, a different look. The block walls were off-white but had a colonial blue color rubbed on so the blocks were outlined. I remember speckles of red, too. Just a little, but maybe I'm wrong about that. Unlike the rest of the place, it looked like someone tried to care.

It had a bed, made up in a dark blue spread, old, but the bed was neat. On one side, near the foot, was a pile of three books. One looked like a journal and another was a Bible, a paperback version, like the occupant or past occupant staged that one room only and wanted to leave a message.

It's one of those mysteries I wish I could have answered in this lifetime. Who made the bed, staged the books like a magazine photo? All I can imagine is that the person was female. What she had endured there, in that oppressive place, I don't know. But I liked to think she wanted to leave some hope in that place that held the opposite.