(Note: In order to better understand this story, you should read the original Stone Boy short story.)
Ryan Herbert
English 104.9
2/7/94
Arnold stopped at the bottom of the stairs. Silently, he sat on the bottom step and buried his head into his hands and let his elbows dig into the muscles of his legs. As he sat there, the memories of that day clouded his thinking. After several minutes, Arnold raised his head to discover that he had been crying. Arnold closed his eyes and leaned against the railing, letting his tears flood unabated down his face. Finally, Arnold clumsily wiped his eyes and turned to go back into the house.
Arnold stumbled back up the steps, half expecting to see his family still in the kitchen. As he walked across the hard wood floor, the empty house that he had not been in since he was fifteen echoed with the sound of his shoes. Arnold's mother had died just a week ago, and his father six months before. He hadn't gone to either of their funerals. His sister had been married for five years. He didn't go to her wedding. And the house that he hadn't been in for ten years was his.
Arnold climbed up the stairs to his and Eugie's old bedroom. As he moved around in the small room he hit his head on a rafter. Looking around, Arnold saw that all of his belongings that he left there, although more orderly and apparently smaller, were still in his room. He sat in the chair in front of his desk and started to shuffle through the top drawers contents. When he reached a picture of his family, Arnold paused. It was an old, brittle photograph of his family. In the front row were he and Nora. Standing in the back were his mother, his father, and directly behind him, Eugie, with his large hand on Arnold's small shoulder. Arnold placed the picture in his front shirt pocket and wandered back downstairs.
Arnold paused at the closed door of his parent's bedroom. He turned the knob and pressed at the door, but it was warped shut. Arnold gave another push, and then turned to go back outside. On his way out, he noticed the empty gun rack and quickly turned away.
As he walked back down the outside steps, Arnold noticed that the sky was gray to the point of being almost white. He followed the path to the south where an orange mist hung coldly over the valley. Arnold opened the gate and walked past the empty barn and chicken houses, which were badly in need of repair. Arnold inspected them briefly, but decided to continue on.
Arnold stepped over the decrepit old barbed wire fence easily. He walked quietly down the path, looking at the ducks in the pond. Suddenly, he stepped on a stick that made a loud cracking sound that echoed through the valley. The ducks, startled, flew up northward making the same annoying sound that Arnold always remembered them making. He paused for a moment, brooding, and then turned on his heel marched back up the path away from the garden.
Once back in the house, Arnold went into the dimly lit bathroom. As best he could, he washed his face and straightened his hair. As he dusted off his suit, he felt the picture in his pocket. Arnold took it out and gazed at it once again. He let the picture drop to the floor and left the bathroom, shutting the door hard behind him. As he did so, the force caused his parents' room door to creak open a few inches. Arnold looked at the door narrowly, then walked confidently out the front door and locked it. He went down the creaking stairs of the porch and proceeded to the car that was sitting in the driveway. Arnold got into the passenger's seat and gave the keys to the house to the driver.
"Sell it," he said. "Get as much as you can for the old dump."
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