The House (standard:humor, 4710 words)
Author: Johnny Nys	Added: Jun 21 2004	Views/Reads: 3258/2159	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Steve had planned the victimless burglary at his best friend's house down to the finest detail. Nothing could possibly go wrong. Not, that is, until Johnny Nys decided to write his 4700-word THE HOUSE with an hilarious twist in the tail. Johnny perfectly

The House 

by 

Johnny Nys 

Steve saw the house too late. He passed it, made a u-turn at the next
intersection when there was no more traffic and pulled into the 
driveway. He thought about honking the horn and taking Dean for a 
drive, then got out when he felt the call of nature he had silenced 
during half the trip and which rose again now that he wasn't 
concentrating on the road anymore. 

It was a nice house, he thought. All main rooms were on the ground floor
and there was an attic. Not too big. Not too shabby. Warm brick, wooden 
shutters at the windows, drapes on the inside. A fresh garden 
surrounding the building, grass cut short and hedges trimmed. 

He envied Dean. Living here might be fun. Steve thought of his own house
as he approached the front door. His front door was plain wood, not 
fancy decorated glass. His doorbell didn't work. When he opened the 
door, it creaked like hell. He didn't think Dean's front door would 
creak. Probably no part of the house made any sound at all. His own 
house complained if you breathed heavily. It was a dump. 

But a silent house wasn't all that great, either. Steve remembered some
burgling bastard trying to invade his kingdom; no idea it held no 
treasure. Perhaps he had considered it an easy target, a desolate 
street next to the city park where drunks came to offload their last 
greasy meal. 

It had been the middle of the night, both his parents on night shift.
Steve had been in deep dreams, no thanks to several stray cats 
re-enacting a scene from Braveheart in the gutter above his bedroom 
window. The moment the thief had set foot on the first step of the 
stairs, the whole neighborhood had been alarmed. The man had crashed 
through the wood and banged his head on the basement floor after taking 
down a rack full of empty bottles and jars. 

It had taken Steve three weeks to repair that hole, his parents too busy
at work and too tired when they got home, and without any money to hire 
a professional. But luckily he had been able to grab the burglar and 
hold him for the police to take him off his hands. In a silent house 
with good foundations and without rotten wood, the residents would have 
slept through to find their possessions gone in the morning. 

Ever since, Steve had wondered where some people found the courage to
enter someone else's house uninvited, to steal. You never knew when 
someone might get up at night for a snack or pay a visit to the 
bathroom. So much depended on chance, so there probably was more 
involved than courage. You had to have skills as well. Stealth, most 
importantly. Agility and speed. Steve wondered if he would ever be able 
to pull it off himself. Not to go stealing, of course, but to see how 
easy or how difficult it would be just to break and enter ... although 
he sure could use the money if he went the whole hog. 

Steve rang the bell. It was more of a whistle than a real bell. He
noticed a flicker in the hallway. He thought it odd, until he 
remembered that Dean's mother was deaf. 

He snickered. So rich people had problems like that as well. It seemed
to him only the poor had to overcome disabilities, costing them double 
their paychecks. You never heard about rich people with a handicap, 
because they had the money to hide it. They could afford all kinds of 
surgery and if that wasn't an option, they could buy the best equipment 
to help them through the day without a problem. They could install 
special electric lines, which made the lights flicker whenever someone 
was at the door. 

But Maria was Dean's mother and no typical rich person, so he wouldn't
have to act as if she was some arrogant businessman shitting on his 
employees because, according to him, they didn't like working for a man 
in a wheelchair. With such a shitty boss, Steve would arrange meetings 
on the top floor of their building all the time and disable the 
elevators. Then the boss could ask the window washers to hoist him up, 


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