Kiss of A Titan
Chapter 16

Although his findings in the house was remarkable and somewhat good for us, his discovery of the basement had brought about two new problems which we had to deal with which were, firstly, in addition to the other rooms the dustman was assigned to clean, the basement has increased the workload for the dustman to clean up the dirt underneath the house as well as the payment for the work and aunt seemed more concern with the how the dustman would react if he finds out that he had yet another part of the house that needed cleaning though the kids would be happy if they knew that the house had a basement for storing important things we might need in the future especially Tom whom I believe would be thrilled the most if he finds out a cellar was underneath the house all along since he loved playing the hide-and-seek game with his friends back when we were still in Georgia.

The second reason, which was similar to the condition of the attic, was the presence of rodents in both the attic and basement that added more numbers as well as shelter to these crawling creatures already present in the attic. For this, aunt would need to contact the pest control exterminator if there were any in this new town, and this, of course, incurs other bills of which would cost her some tangible amount of cash from her bank account.

Moreover, the presence of such rodents in the house might attracts potential predators like snake and she wouldn't want us to be living in a house where the rodents are much in number and may likely invite lethal predators with toxic poison that everyone knows are harmful to humans even though some friends I knew back then at our former home, had snakes as pets living in their houses, not to mention the surroundings that were still unkempt and the bushes at the backyard had overgrown to the point that it had overtaken the few flowers and the statues that were erected there as well.

She knows that we all hated the sight of a creeping creature particularly snakes with poisonous fangs and cold sinews whose sleek movements in places where thick bushes like what we had in our backyard, are very difficult to take notice of and there had been quite a lot of cases we saw in the news, of a black mamba residing in the houses of a family living in our old neighborhood in spite of the fact that were barely enough bushy shrubs there.

To such predators, mouse and rats have always been their favorite meal, which of course was at the bottom of the food chain and judging from the squeaky noises we heard at the basement, their numbers alone only in the cellar below the house would be much more than the rodents at the attic and it would do us no good leaving them to roam around the rest part of the rooms.

Tom had accidentally gotten himself injured because of these creatures as a result of his phobia for such animals and we wouldn't want a whole invasion of rodents that might be spreading some sort of disease in the house.

The two rodents I saw when three of us were at the basement a while back was bigger compared with the one that frightened Tom the other day and this was a call for concern for all four of us living in a much larger apartment than our previous home where the rooms there contained all three of us since it had lesser space and was more compacted.

It was at our disadvantage that there were a lot of rooms in the house despite the beauty of the entire house and aunt wasn't planning on renting them for anyone to live with us for the entire period while we stayed in the new house.

I had all these concerns kept in mind while I was upstairs, in my room where I had to get the things I brought along with me, arranged properly just to keep me distracted from worrying about how to get my phone powered back on with electricity and to drive all idleness trying to plague my thoughts including my limbs.

It was about two hours ago when the plumber left us and evening was fast approaching for us to begin preparation for our evening meal once again. For me, I hated having to see the sight of rats and never wanted to be in a situation where I have to wake up from sleep in the morning only to see a huge snake creeping underneath the bed in search of possible prey like the rodents already in massive numbers in the house.

Such a scenario is highly inevitable for anyone dwelling in this kind of spacious house inhabited by a lot of mice since there were a lot of spaces it had to accommodate a large number of people like a hotel would and I had never imagine myself in such a possible situation which would most likely happen if aunt fails to tackle this issue in time for all of us to live comfortably without the fear of being intimidated by the unknown.

Thanks to the efforts of the dustman, the entire rooms in the house were thoroughly cleaned up including the bathrooms inside and aunt was helping the kids get their bath in one of the recently cleaned rooms next to mine the entire time I was busy getting my clothes neatly arranged in the closet that now had a good outlook regardless of the absence of electricity which was the only thing missing in the entire room.

I could hear them chattering noisily with my aunt in the other room while I sat on the bed searching for the next items I wanted to bring out of the bag which lay open with some of my clean clothes scattered on the floor.

It occurred to me as I gently unpack that my aunt could make a fortune if she had more than enough to make a business out of the empty rooms inside our new house. Though aunt would deem it absurdly out of consideration if she were to hear my thoughts and opinions about using the house for a business intentions rather than housing all four of us for the rest of the summer, I nursed the idea of letting her know about despite knowing aunt barely had interest in becoming an estate agent let alone planning on transforming a house in the woods into a glamorous five star hotel like the ones the kids and I often see on commercials on television back at our old home in Georgia.

Hotel suites and luxurious rooms were something aunt could never have dream of finding a lifetime career as a single mother with the burden of taking care of three children. Her intentions of making us live comfortably here in this house in Houston for the summer period greatly supersedes our current needs to fill our bellies with aunt's favorite dishes right now and my idea of getting her to utilize the foundations of the house to make profits for herself to replenish the amount of money she had spent will shrink to oblivion in front of the real purpose aunt drove us from Georgia to Houston instead of taking a direct train to this small town.

Her decision to drive us to the new town has made me greatly doubt if the city really had a subway station but I was sure I caught sight of an underground tunnel in one of those public spaces during our transit through the middle of town before we almost got lost in this quiet neighborhood.

She would have laughed at my imagination and I would have felt too much embarrassed to let her know about it if I were to let her know the impression I felt when I saw the new house for the first time but I would have loved to have a talk on such a matter of state if only I already knew it was at a completely different angle from her career views.

I couldn't care less if aunt was to give up her own portion of comfort in order to make things easier to ease our moving into a new house pleasurable and easy regardless of the cost she was paying for the family of four to get a good night rest since the responsibility of ensuring we get comfortable inside the new house indisputably falls on her shoulders but I would make the best out of every chance I will get to explore the desires and interactions with anyone I get to meet especially with the neighbors close by.

Then I unzipped one of the large pockets of my luggage and took out some posters of music celebrities I was fond of and toss them on the bed particularly Michael Jackson, the famous pop music artist people around the world loved in the late nineties of which was the first poster, amongst the few I took from the bag, I had glued on the wall seven meters high above the bed where two of the pillow rested.

And it looked like a better angle to me, from the way I saw it on the wall and it fitted perfectly with the pinkish color of the wallpaper covering the walls of the room.

Little by little, the ideal setting of how my room was to look like which I had planned in mind was unfolding itself as I looked for a better angle to paste the second poster on the wall but there was rather still much to be done in the room especially the drawers which was lacking the presence an electronic lamp beside the bed.

Even the windows were still looking a lot plainer and too simple for my liking as a young lady about reaching the ills of adulthood. I was the kind of girl that hated leaving the window idly without fixing something pleasant to the eye such as a dream-catcher I once had back home but had gone missing for some months before we parked to this side of town.

There was also the absence of a wall clock or a little alarm table clock in the room and I wasn't sure of how to purchase one of which would be of great importance to me when I start my first day at the new school aunt was planning on making me attend for my sake in accordance with reasons best known to the both of us. At that moment, I knew I had a lot to compensate for a better room after leaving behind my old one in the apartment we lived in Georgia which was by far memorably too good to be missed. Resetting a room to become mine after leaving an old one as though I abandoned a lover that had spent time in sleeping in for the rest of my life, was another thing I found highly bothersome and unfriendly but fun in getting to settle down with another room for a fresh start.

I took out the last poster from the bed, and scoured for a suitable angle. Eventually, I had it pasted on one side of the closet facing the window instead of the wall near the curtains since it occurred to me that all the angles in the room doesn't seem to suit this particular poster and it glued perfectly with the closet in such a manner that I was pleased with my creativity though a lot had to be done to get the room back the way I wanted it to look.

There was also a lot to be done in the bathroom which was empty eagerly waiting for me to step foot inside after it was thoroughly cleaned from top to bottom and I felt a bit weary with all the things I had offloaded from the bag and most of them were lying helplessly in large numbers on the floor next to the bed where the blanket was bit rumpled desperately waiting for me to put it in the right shape on the bed, fairly large enough to contain my whole body size even though it looked smaller from afar. As I stood at the entrance of the bathroom, I really wondered if a nice bath could rid me of the stress and fatigue already weighing heavily down on the soft muscles of my flesh ever since our morning packing in drill. All I could see was the awaiting arms of sleep luring me to the bed where some of my clothes were lying helplessly waiting for me to free them from slumber instead of the opaque darkness that prevailed inside the partly enclosed cubicle. I watched giddily at the empty bathroom but the honk of the car driving nearby woke me up from my tired reflection and compelled my senses to focus on its majestic timely arrival before dusk. Feeling tired and fatigued because of the heat, I strolled to the window to see what had caught my attention after a irksome moment of reflective solitude and from where I was, standing idly by the window, I spotted. a black Chevrolet automobile slowly making its way to the garage at Chloe's apartment and the driver as well as his partner who was a woman, were soon welcomed by Chloe and her sister after the driver, who undoubtedly was her dad, had safely parked the car inside the garage. It struck my curiosity that they were returning back home happy from wherever they had gone when it was still daylight before retiring home in the evening like most couples with their kids do after a family trip. Anyone watching them would be deceived that the family coming out of their car to enter their house outside aloof from my new home with cheers and smiles on their faces, had a wonderful time spending their day together as a family. "Maybe our stay in Houston this summer won't be that bad", so I thought as I watched them entering their home.

Seeing their happy gestures and faces from where I was, made me feel relieved with all the whole relocating thing to a new environment in a new town and it really did feel like everything was going to be okay at sunrise the next morning even though we were barely two days in the house ever since we moved in yesterday.

The happy family soon went inside their home to settle down for the forthcoming evening after the warm reception as I watched from my window but I remained there peering at the waning sun radiating above their corrugated rooftop, contemplating about how our first stay in town will be for us as time progresses.