Empty Light

Ka-chunk.
(A muffled voice, speaking in Spanish)
Ka-chunk. Ka-chunk.
(That voice again. What is it?)
Ka-chunk. Ka-chunk.

I raise my eyes from the keyboard. The paintings on the living room wall swim in and out of sight. My eyes hurt as I struggle to focus. The glasses are off to help with the near vision. The difference between the near and the far is increasing, I can’t see well with one and do the other. Time for a new prescription, I think.

Ka-chunk. More muffled Spanish, followed by scraping noises.

Where is that coming from? I wonder. The light streaming in through the kitchen windows spills over my shoulders, onto the ceiling above. I have my back to the window, but I can see the light dimly moving, changing, as if something briefly crossed in front of the window. I turn, squinting through the small gap in the kitchen curtains. There is motion, and I see the wood handle of a tool, up above the top of the curtain. It wobbles and then disappears from view.

Scrape, scrape, ka-chunk. Again, a voice calling out. I am surprised to recognize a word or two. My jobsite Spanish is rusty to the point of near non-existence, but I thought I heard the word for “shovel”. Or was he saying “cable”? I do not know.

Someone walked into the front yard and then out. I hear more voices, and my curiosity is now piqued. Walking to the kitchen window, I see a group of three men in the yard next door. One has a shovel and is digging a shallow trench from the sidewalk to the front of the neighboring house. The other two appear to be discussing something, low voices muffled through the glass. One gestures to the round cover of a cable access hole, the other starts to open it. Beyond them, out in the parking lot sits a truck, the logo of a local telecommunications company plastered to the door. A man is getting a small spool of cable off the truck.

Ah, that’s right. It won’t be long now, I guess. They must be installing the hookup for the house next door. I vaguely remember seeing our potential new neighbors weeks ago, inspecting the house, so the sale must have gone through. They wouldn’t be installing cable for ghosts.

Ghosts? Not exactly. But what could it be, in a house suddenly gone empty? Spirits? Perhaps just the dampening reverberations of the presences of the people who used to live there? I tell myself not to be dramatic. No one died there, no tragic events, no star crossed lovers killing themselves in a fit of misguided passion. I even know where my neighbors went, have visited the new house they are in not far away. I am a silly person, sometimes.

I stand at the window and watch the workmen. They are careful not to disturb too much, and they skillfully run a connection under the sidewalk. They are oblivious to my presence. I consider that I walk that sidewalk every morning, almost, usually on a schedule. Not so much since the layoff back in December. Each morning I pass the house I find myself looking through the front window. I cannot help it. The curtains are gone, there are no blinds, and I can see clear through the house and out the back sliding door. It seems so empty.

The emptiness radiates from the house, a thin coldness that reaches all the way to the sidewalk. I can feel its tendrils coiling slowly around me, like seaweed unseen around my ankles, my legs, and my torso. It isn’t unpleasant, exactly, but it fills me with a low-grade uneasiness. I know it’s only seaweed but I am not amenable to being touched by things I cannot see.

Each morning since the former neighbors moved out, I pass that house and it feels like a void there. A negative of the structure that I know is still there. What is it about a house with no human presence that seems so utterly lifeless? It isn’t as if I am living next door to one of those abandoned farmhouses I often see showing up in art magazines or National Geographic. The house on the other side is still occupied, and I am surrounded by houses with people still in them. Why then does it make me feel like I am looking at a mausoleum instead of a home?

Emptiness. Emptiness and the fact that I can look through those windows and doors, without running the risk or opportunity of seeing another human being. I will see no one watching television, or fixing dinner, no dog mashing his nose against the window in curiosity as I walk by. I miss having the chance for that kind of encounter.

Ah, I have it now. Beyond all that lies the light. The silvery yellow light as it streams through the back door of the kitchen. I see it most mornings, when there are no clouds or rain. It is a beautiful light, powerfully reflected by the whiteness of the bare walls. It always makes me pause. I find myself standing on the sidewalk, mute and wondering. It seems an empty light, powerful and luminous; its purity unbroken by a child running into the kitchen for a snack, or a husband and wife enjoying a drink at the table. Its austerity makes me a little sad. Where is the real beauty in this light, if the human heart isn’t there to enjoy it? I wonder, too, if the presences in the house feel the same way about this light.

Rapid fire Spanish outside the window. The bubble of my daydream pops, and I come to with a start. I am still standing at the kitchen window. The workers are finishing up, strewing straw over the freshly dug path of the cable. In a few minutes, they are gone.

The next morning I step outside and take a few steps to the front walk. The parking lot is nearly void of cars, almost every having left for work already. I am home alone, and the neighborhood is amazingly quiet. In the cool morning air I stand in front of my neighbor’s house, looking through the front window. The light is there again, strong and silvery. I step to the window, treading carefully through the planting bed. No one is home, of course.

The light seemed warmer that morning. I didn’t feel the chill of days past. I thought for a moment that maybe it was the house itself reaching out to me, warming up a little and whispering “I won’t be alone for much longer. Did you hear? Someone is coming to live here.” Yes, house, I know.

The light warmed my face as I peered through the window. Soon, if all goes according to plan, those presences will be filled in with human beings. This reassures me, takes the edge off the uneasiness. Soon, people will be here, and the light will be empty no longer.