Scott: The Harper Place

Martha caught a long glimpse of the rabbit that had been menacing their apartment complex for the passed several weeks and let out a sigh of frustration. She was sick of her brother’s constant hypothesizing as to the significance of the white rabbit as a symbol. It was insignificant, she had tried to convince him.

But for something as insignificant as a rabbit, it sure was making life hard on the third floor of Red Butte Building 27. It had an unhampered appetite for wallpaper.

“The property value of this place has gone down enough since they made the Harper Place into a Looney Bin. The last thing we need is holy walls.” Mom was known to remind them regularly.

Bob Harper had been a strange character for as long as they had known him before his death several years ago. He had no wife or kids and rarely left his front door. If he did come out to check the mail or smoke a cigarette he always wore a different get-up. These rare appearances did not seem that of someone who was afraid of the outside world at all but more like performances. He often spoke with a fake accent and would spend several hours introducing himself to passersby as a different character, only to vanish again for several more months.

The house had seemed to sag with the weight of over-grown weeds. It now looked like a bum on whom someone took pity and gave a gentlemanly makeover; grinning with a kind of awkward clean.

Mister Harper left all of his money to a private organization that provides counseling and sanctuary to the mentally disturbed. The white-coats came in three waves; first the landscapers, then the doctors, then the patients.

Mom failed to see the irony in a building being refurbished lowering the property value of the local establishments. All she saw were more Bob Harpers and it made her feel dirty.

To be continued…