The house on 52 Sarmiento Street refused to be fixed.

The Fall

The house on 52 Sarmiento Street refused to be fixed. Like a child who throws a tantrum, it cracked open every time they tried to dress her in new clothes.

“It’s probably tired of existing,” the wife thought.

“I’d be if I were her,” he husband added. The old colonial house had been built without any sense of planning. The materials used were probably the cheapest and in the oddest proportions. The cracked walls revealed a sandwich of reddish dust trapped between layers of mortar.

They wanted to make it look decent as a final gesture of appreciation before they left. If someone in the family decided to sell it, it may go for a higher price if it looked whole, solid, presentable.

They started painting the walls. They looked great at first glance. However, as the brush caressed the surfaces, hiding the old paint and the weakened structure, they could feel its resistance. Like a woman refusing to wear makeup, the house started to crack once more. First, it looked as if the new paint was peeling off. When they pulled the tiny layer that popped up, the whole layer of cement that covered it started to fall like broken glass.

Then, they wooden frames started to shrink as if they were Styrofoam exposed to fire. Caves that led nowhere started to appear in every frame as if an army of giant ants had been undermining the structure. They stopped and looked around.

The floor cracked as if they were waking on thin ice. The husband commanded the wife to run away. He looked up and saw the uppermost wall scream, more than in pain in desperation, like a terminal patient begging for a lethal shot.

It cracked and pieces of debris started to fall in all directions.

They all ran and the whole finally collapsed silently like a dog laying down after turning around several times. They swear the heard a sigh when the last speckle settled.