That’s when I said no. It was emphatic. I screamed it. Believe me, it was an earful. He rammed his hands against his ears. I would never agree to a thing like that. The gal in making such a preposterous offer. Not once, not twice but for so many years! The tenacity of these people. I must say that in some crude way, they’re brave. They made the offer and even worse, they thought I’d accept it.

The offer utterer, a weird looking little fellow, stared at me like a Labrador pup. Large brown eyes, slightly damp, with an undying wish to be pampered, as though he was about to burst into inconsolable tears if I managed to say no to his offer. He was not the offeror of course. Just the utterer of the offer. A mouth piece. I agree, he’s just a tool, an implement to get to me but I don’t know which is worse, the fact that he expected me to accept his offer or that he had allowed himself to be convinced he had a right to make the offer.

Preposterous!

How could anyone make an offer like that? What manner of upbringing would make a person ask another to do such a nonsensical thing? I haven’t heard of such a thing in my entire life and believe me, I’ve lived a long life. Unfulfilled, I agree. Unhappy, surely. Alone for decades at end. Guarding this place like a praetorian guard. Its precious to me, I tell you. I will not give it up.

Just because he wears those weird clothes and rushes around the place like it was his own doesn’t mean he can ask me to do the impossible. I will not, I tell you. What’s more I am angry now. Not very angry, mind you. More than irritated, less than very angry. It’s called angry. Yes, I am angry now. I threw the old lamp at him. It bounced off his egg shaped head, making him jump almost three feet in the air like some over-the- edge gymnast. I am sure I noticed his hairs standing on end. It works every time. Every time.

He ran, but his coterie where ahead of him. He was giving chase to them with vim. I like that in a man. My husband had a lot of vim when we were dating. Then, I married him. Anyway, the house is free of the intruders again. I can relax. I wish I could make myself some tea. I love tea.

Silence reigns. I slip into my little room under the ground in the backyard where my husband left me one dark night after I died. He was there to keep me company for a long time. Until he died. Funny, he went straight into the light leaving me here in the darkness to guard this house that I loved so much.