In my old neighborhood in 1992, there was a house inhabited by an elderly couple. Both born in the early nineteen hundreds, they liked old fashioned things. What I thought was the strange part though, was that they didn’t use electricity or anything that was, to them, considered newfangled, such as cars, television, microwaves, cell phones, computers, et cetera. Whenever someone visits their house like solicitors the person always asks, why don’t you use any electric things? The elderly couple replies, we don’t use things that we couldn’t use back in our time.”

Being only eight years old when this happened, I couldn’t fathom what they said. When I asked my mom what they meant, she said that they didn’t have electricity when they were kids, so they don’t want to use it. Once, my mother made me go to their house to be babysat while my parents went to a party or something. When I arrived, I asked if I could use the bathroom. The old lady told me it was in the backyard. I walked outside and saw a little room made out of wood and walked in, what I saw was not pretty. It looked like a porter potty! No, it was worse that a porter potty, I can’t really describe it all that well, but it was very dirty inside with a hole in the wood. No toilet paper, just the lonely little hole. I ran out of the “bathroom” and went back into the house.

I asked the lady if I could watch television, she told me they didn’t have one and I thought she was kidding. Playing with a doll that looked about one hundred years old is not very fun. I sat in the room very lonely, and sang a song to myself for three hours. After those long, restless hours the door slammed from downstairs and I heard the old man calling his wife and telling her that he’s home. I could smell a hot stew cooking on the old stove. I went into the kitchen and sat down at the table. We had a nice conversation.

First I asked the old man where he worked. He said he worked at an electronics store, which I thought was ironic since they don’t use any type of technology. I ate my stew and prayed that my parents would be home soon. Right when I finished my meal, I heard a knock on the front door; I didn’t hear it at first since I was used to a doorbell. I ran straight to the door and jumped into my fathers arms and he carried me home. I was very tired afterwards so I went to bed.

The next morning I told my parents about this and they didn’t believe that I had to play with a doll for three hours, even though I did. They also thought I was lying when I said I had to use an outhouse. But what my parents don’t realize is the strangeness of the elderly couple and their home. The house seemed very old and spooky, as if someone might have died there.
My parents made me go back there the next day so I could get over my “fear” of them. I asked the old lady what her name was and she told me it was Miriam. I later asked Miriam if they had any children. She hesitated to answer and quickly changed the subject to how I’m doing in school. I told her my grades, which were okay I guess and she flipped. She was telling me how much I needed to improve and that when she was in school she had better grades. I asked her about a child again.
Suddenly she fell to the ground with a loud THUMP. I ran to my house and call “911” and when the paramedics arrived they said it was a heart attack. But the weirdest thing of all was when I got home I read in the obituaries section of the newspaper that Miriam’s husband had also died of a heart attack at the exact same time on the exact same day. Also, when I went into my room, there was a picture of them glaring at the camera. The glass was shattered and scattered all over the carpet. I ran out to show my mom and when I returned to my room, it was all gone.