Lightning ripped across the night sky, tearing open the black clouds to show a white light before darkness again closed over the wound. The booming thunder followed soon after, slightly shaking the black and square 1970 Mercedes Benz as it drove up the hill. The road was relatively steep yet not horribly bumpy, letting the well-dressed man inside enjoy a moderately comfortable ride to the top as rain poured on his car. His lazy gray-blue eyes had stared at the windshield wipers for quite some time now as they went back and forth, his hands effortlessly guiding the car up the steep incline. With nothing but fences and farmland on either side of the road, there was nothing else for him to look at. Another crack of lightning ripped the sky, and in the brief moment of light, he could see the mansion at the top of the hill illuminate, looking even more daunting than it had appeared in the day. The man’s white and bony fingers clutched the steering wheel more tightly as the car crested the hill and slowly leveled out. The road circled around a floral island set into the concrete, passing just in front of the house. He breathed in a sigh as he rounded the small roundabout and parked in front of the house, his door facing the front doors of the mansion. He glanced in the rear-view mirror at his youthfully thin and white complexion, smoothly slicking back his raven black hair as he checked for any other blemishes on his face. “Okay, Michael, you got this,” he told himself as he sighed and grabbed the notepad from beside him and exited the car.
Dressed in glossy black shoes, black pants, a white under-shirt and black overcoat, Michael made his way up the steps quickly, his five-foot-ten frame helping to propel him up. His mind was racing with questions, not just for the interview, but also about the interview. He recalled how the staff members were interviewing important figures in the town for a local special in the paper. Thinking nothing of it, he had volunteered for the Delacroix mansion on top of Canberra hill. He had told himself that it would be an easy assignment. All he would have to do is get inside, do the quick interview, and leave. Despite reassuring himself that there was nothing to it, he found himself tightly clutching the notepad underneath his left arm as he ran up the dozen steps to the front door. Two smooth grey columns stood by the last step, holding up the balcony above that provided him cover from the rain now that he had reached the front door. Now that he was by the building, he realized the gargantuan size of the structure. The walls were a grey colour yet not dull, in fact, more or less a glossy form of grey nearing a dark silver colour. Along the edges were traces of a brown borderline that sought to add colour to the structure and, oddly, made him feel more welcome than he would at a place such as a prison. The colour also helped to blend in the large double oak doors that lay in front of him, both with golden handles and locks as well as an old-fashioned gold knocker that appeared as if it were right off the shelf. It was then that he realized a cleanly white light above him had turned on to allow him to see in the dark. Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, Michael moved up toward the large oak door and raised his hand to knock firmly on the oak at the same time the door opened.
“Hello Michael,” the man inside greeted the reporter warmly as Michael was awash with a slightly yellow light emanating from inside. For a brief moment, he was surprised that the man knew his name, until he remembered that he had called the Delacroix mansion earlier to arrange the meeting. Despite the blond-haired man standing in front of him, the first thing Michael noticed was the soft baroque music playing in the background. He was thinking to enquire what it was when the man in front of him answered his thought for him. “It’s John Sebastian Bach, Concerto for Four Harpsichords,” he said softly. It was then that Michael noticed the features of the man in front of him. He was no taller than Michael, nor was he built any larger or smaller than the twenty-three year old reporter. Dressed in black shoes, black pants, a dark blue shirt and a black ankle-length robe, the man did not look like he truly owned the mansion, or that he could afford it for that matter. Along with the neck-length golden blond hair that the man appeared to brush forward to his bright blue eyes, he looked no older than Michael. In fact, he looked quite young, perhaps in late teens or early twenties. Despite his young appearance, he had the politeness of any gentleman past his age. “Come in, Michael, make yourself home,” he said, gracefully stepping to the side to let the reporter in through the open door.
As he stepped inside, Michael let the man take his overcoat and hang it up on the nearby coat rack. Michael’s eyes stared about the place in wonder. Despite its size, he found it warmly welcoming, especially compared to the outside. There was a brilliant red, gold-trimmed carpet leading from the front door and up a grand staircase that was directly in front of the door. At the top, it split into two smaller staircases, and he could see no further into the house as they ran beyond the walls to the side. Dark wooden banisters surrounded the staircase to either side, sporting electric lamps in the shapes of candles on every corner. Where there was no carpet, a glossy oak floor lay in its place. The walls and ceiling were a light red colour, each right angle covered by a curved peace of oak that smoothly blended into the walls, floor and ceiling, giving the walls a beautiful wood frame to offset the light red. There were rooms on the ground floor to each side, yet the lights were turned down, preventing Michael from seeing further into the house and, thus, keeping him from mindlessly wandering about.
“Quite the place you got here, Mister Delacroix,” Michael said, to which the blond man smiled and bowed gracefully. Delacroix said nothing as he slowly moved into the left room, his black robe gracefully trailing behind him and waving slightly in time to his steps. With a slight silent gesture by the owner of the mansion, Michael followed behind to the brick fireplace, which Delacroix lit to be the only source of light in the room. Despite being just a fire, it provided more than enough light as they walked over to a set of chairs facing each other. The one that Delacroix sat in was particularly large, a dark red colour with a myriad of black floral patterns decorating it. The armrests flowed into the back of the chair flawlessly and continued downward into a set of four peg legs to elevate the chair. He lay back in the chair as Michael sat in the opposite seat, one that was similar in design but smaller and a blue colour. Michael found the seat abnormally comfortable and relaxed into the soft cushions, feeling the heat and light from the fireplace to his left wash over him.
“So,” Delacroix began without ending, as if trying to keep Michael from falling asleep in the chair, which was all too possible. Embarrassed, Michael cleared his throat and proceeded to slip the notepad from under his arm, which conveniently housed a pen and the set of questions he had compiled. Clearing his throat again, he glanced toward Delacroix, who looked almost too patient as he sat there. “What is it like living where you are,” Michael read directly off his paper, clicking his pen and preparing to write. “You know, up here on Canberra hill.” Delacroix looked thoughtful for a quiet moment, which seemed like an eternity to Michael as he glanced up to the blond man and back down to his paper. “It’s very peaceful, very solitary. No distractions or interruptions.” Michael wrote the notes down rapidly yet smoothly, which brought about a naturally quizzical look from the blond man that was neither spoken by Delacroix nor noticed by Michael. “Who are your best companions in town?” Michael continued, looking up from his notepad to see an unusually simplistic yet serious look on the other man’s face. Delacroix neither smiled nor frowned nor showed any thought, but simply stared at Michael. “Oh, uh, I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s quite alright,” Delacroix finally spoke. “I find, everything is my friend,” he said softly before shrugging slightly. Michael fell silent as he looked over the rest of the questions. Already they seemed plain and simple, not truly capturing the persona of this man in front of him. They almost felt inappropriate to ask. “Is there anything else you would wish to ask?” Delacroix inquired, his eyes squarely set on Michael. Though he put the notepad away and forgot of the questions on the paper, he stayed firmly seated and showed no signs of movement, though he did stare at the fire in thought. Michael wanted the right question, a question that was more personal than the pre-made stereotypical garbage that had been given to him as a last minute set of notes to go from. “What do you value?” Michael asked, looking directly at Delacroix this time. He saw the blond man smile a bigger smile than he had before as Delacroix relaxed into his chair even further, his hands folding into his lap. “I value peace, enlightenment,” Delacroix started, “life and equality.”
“Good things?” Michael rapidly asked, his hand slicking his black hair back. Delacroix suddenly looked put off-guard for the first time in the night. “Good and bad are suspect to opinion,” the owner of the house explained. “I value companionship, love, individuality, respect…I suppose you could call those good things.” Michael sat back and waved his hand slightly for Delacroix to continue. He understood now why he had found the previous questions mundane: they only showed a fragment of the man that sat before him. “I value truth, equality and justice,” Delacroix continued.
“Law?” Michael interjected to try to understand further. The other man shook his head slowly, his blond hair waving slightly, which then turned into a slight shrug. “I would suppose it would be included,” Delacroix said, “among other things such as morality and justice outside of the courtroom that is so frequently encountered in mortal life. Doing the right thing, being the right person, so on and so forth.” Michael, somewhat entranced in the man’s words, nodded. A short silence followed before he chose to spoke again. “If you could choose one thing you value most,” he started, stopping to think correctly and politely, and to slick back his hair in the silence, “what would that be and why?”
This time, Delacroix did not smile, but appeared to drop into his own reality, lost in his own thoughts. It was as if he had faded from reality simply by pondering the question so much. After a long moment, he opened his mouth and carefully answered the question. “I value life and being in its purest state, full of innocence and spirit, built of love to give love.” Michael felt something odd about the man’s answer that seemed far too true beyond human standards, but managed to repress a shiver and keep his composure clean. He was ready to ask the question of why, but instead felt awash in a sort of deeper understanding of the blond man’s words, something that gave an answer before the question could be placed into words. The lengthening silence was eventually broken by Delacroix’s voice speaking again, this time without the mysticism that lay behind it in his past phrase. “Is that all?” He asked Michael, who nodded and slowly stood up on legs that were slow to respond. Delacroix himself got up silently and extended his hand, which was received and fairly shook by Michael. “Thank you for your time, Mister Delacroix,” Michael said with a smile, his eyes brighter than they had ever been. The blond man simply nodded, letting the reporter off toward the front door. As Michael opened the door, he could hear a voice behind him call after him. “Because it’s everything,” it said as if answering the question that was never asked. Michael stayed straight and walked out the door, not looking over his shoulder to confirm that Delacroix spoke the words. The sky was surprisingly clear, the rain had stopped, and sunlight began to stream over the horizon. Michael smiled to himself as he plopped himself into his Mercedes Benz and started the engine. He looked to place his notepad onto the passenger seat, where his eyes fell upon the glimpse of a single golden feather simply laying there, unmoved and glimmering in the renewing sunlight. His eyes moved to the house, which began to turn to more of a white colour as light shone upon it, and he smiled at the irony that he was once afraid of the place.
“I heard the guy’s crazy,” Michael could overhear his coworkers saying in the office. “Lives up there all alone, doesn’t talk to nobody, totally locked himself up. What kinda guy lives like that?”
“Some guy who should be locked up in a rubber room I say,” the other fellow spoke up, “straight jacket and all!”
“Awareness.” Both men looked over to Michael who had just spoken up, but neither said anything as he swirled his coffee with a small spoon. “He’s up there to see, everything. To appreciate life, and the entire world, like it should be. He values that.”
All three men fell silent, and slowly, the two coworkers made their way out of the kitchen area to the office, thinking that Michael had lost his own mind up there. As Michael gazed upon the golden feather beside his coffee mug, he felt the deepest sorrow for the two individuals who thought of Delacroix, and himself, as insane. A single sigh escaped his lips as he began to hum the Concerto for Four Harpsichords to himself.
(Not the best, but, bleh. Ending does suck I know.)
