Scraping the Surface

The old house is being undone, the new house is being redone, and I’m in between both, part of me anyway. During moving, I had a tooth pulled and, drooling and lisping, continued hefting beds and boxes with blood on my tongue and my head in a vicodin happy haze. Trust me fellas, hernias can be fun! Slowly the house emptied, blank and exposed, smaller than it seemed while we lived there. I fell asleep in a new room and dreamed the house had floors made of hundreds of shinning pulled teeth. I woke from this dream thinking that the new place, which was built in 1902, would be unfamiliar and spooky. Instead it was perfectly quiet, still full of the bland, wholesome, family energy that it had when we first saw it.
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Today workers are sanding away at the newly exposed floors, sawdust settling on newly painted walls. Slowly we are erasing those who lived there recently and finding vague clues to the house’s past. there's a huge iron safe in the basement with the door removed, but lying nearby. At its clawfoot base, paint on the basement floor shows at least three coats of different shades and ages, all painted around the safe. It may have belonged to the original owners. Under the carpet we found odd holes in the floor, linoleum, and signs of old wear and damage. It’s believed that this kind of work stirs up ghosts.

The other night I fell asleep on the sofa with my mouth throbbing and dreamed I heard a car engine outside, throbbing as well, and making a high rise and fall sound like a crying child. Outside sitting in the crossroads of 33rd and Yamhill there was a white convertible, made of ivory I think. The top was down and inside were a man and woman, both very pale with long, white hair. I think they were the tooth fairy and the spirit of vicodin out for a joy ride. I should have put the pulled tooth under my pillow, maybe I would have found a prescription there in the morning.