Lady Of The Blue House

By Meera Khattar

Marie Augustus is what you can call "woman of misery".

She lost her husband at the age of 40, her only son was settled abroad and barely came to visit her or even call her.

Marie was a living example of a dead person. She did the bare minimum to stay alive every day, she had no one to talk to, and she was simply a monotonous robot who woke up every day with absolutely no hope of seeing the light of the next day. But there was just one thing and one thing only that got her out of bed every day and that was her plants, the only thing that kept a little love in Marie alive were her dear plants.

Her house was a flophouse, its blue paint was wearing off and there rustic pipes were all out in the open, the windows were all dusty and spiders were living in all the corners of the house rent free.

But her appearance was shabbier than her house, her clothes were ragged and looked like hand me downs of a homeless person; her hair looked like they have never been introduced to a hairbrush, her eyes as heavy as one can have.

All the neighbourhood people used to call her "Marie of the blue house" and kept their distance from her, as she didn't seem like a person to befriend. But José wasn’t like the others, he didn’t judge a book by its cover, he didn’t see the worst in people, he didn’t add to the world’s negative energy, Jose was different even though life had given him absolutely nothing to be happy about, he still found a way to put a big grin on his face every morning.

Every day he used to get up, flash a smile here and there; and observe Marie from afar

He just watched how everyday she use to water her plants with a dumb smile on her face but as soon as someone passed her she went back to being a closed off rude person and wiped that smile right off her face. He wanted to know her, he wanted know what made her get up in the morning, what was the reason behind her being this way, what scared her, what made her laugh uncontrollably. So, to finally quench his thirst of getting to know Marie, he wrote her a letter.

He starting off by mentioning her as the “lady of the blue house” and then followed it up by telling her how much he desires to know her and how much he admires her and later signed it off as the “man of the white house”.

When Marie received this letter, she felt good, she felt admired, she felt noticed, and she felt alive.

She started writing back to him and this turned into a series of letter exchanges that resulted in the birth of a new odd friendship. Marie found a reason to wake up, put on a nice dress and to be happy. Now whenever she watered her plants her dumb smile only grew bigger when someone passed by.

The letter exchange between “lady of the blue house” and “man of the white house” brought back love happiness and warmth back.

Sometimes all we need is a little love, a small sign, a friend to pull us out of the black hole.

By Meera Khattar