Definition
1 a : of or relating to an amaranth
b : undying
2 : of a pinkish or rosy red color
Long ago poets conceived of a flower that did not fade and christened it amaranth. The appellation is rooted in the Greek word amarantos, meaning "immortal" or "unfading," and amarantus, the Latin name of a flower (probably Celosia cristata). The word amaranthine emerged as an adjective of the imaginary flower and subsequently of anything possessing its undying quality. Amaranth also names a real plant (genus Amaranthus), an herb that some consider a weed and others grow for its colorful leaves and spikes of flowers.
I was seriously beginning to wish I was rude enough to wear my sunglasses inside. I'd taken them off as soon as I crossed the threshold, the sudden change from brilliant sunshine to seemingly cool darkness momentarily blinding me, thus prompting me to remove them.
However, once my eyes had adjusted, my retinas were soon screaming at me to put them on again.
It wasn't that I had a problem with pink, always a controversial colour that was seen as too feminine by some (although, interestingly, pink originally was considered a man's man colour - being too bold and confident for a delicate woman to pull off. They, instead, had been regulated to baby blue,) but to me, a colour was just a colour, whether you liked it or not. It was people themselves that added shades to it, the colour itself had committed no crime.
Here, however, I might be tempted to revoke that statement.
The house was pink. No, that didn't quite do the scene before me justice. The house and everything in it was every kind of shade of pink imaginable. The walls were pink, the floor was pink, the grouting between the pink floor tiles was pink, the furniture was pink, the coat rack was pink, the pictures on the wall were pink. At the end of the (pink) hallway, through a half open (pink) door, I could see the kitchen. Even the oven was pink.
I looked at the woman standing before me. Clearly she did not believe her feminine personality was too delicate a thing to cope with the boldness of pink. From the tips of her manicured fingernails to the ends of her dyed pink hair, she was devoted to the shade and no other colour was evident on her person save what was naturally gifted to her by biology (and even then she'd managed to compensate for a lot of that with hair dye and contacts. I was half tempted to believe that, had there been a tanning lotion that tanned your skin pink rather than, well, tan, she would have fully embraced that too).
if she stood still enough, in a certain, she would have blended in with her surroundings so completely that it could have been the perfect camouflage.
She smiled at me. "Thank you so much for coming on such short notice. I really appreciate it."
"That's, that's no problem at all." I stammered, still thrown by the pinkness of the entire situation. "You were somewhat vague on the phone? Something about an emergency pest infestation situation so you called animal control?"
"I did indeed and here you are!" She grinned at me. I noticed that one of her front incisors had a small pink tattoo of a flower engraved upon it. I wondered if she ever got food caught in the miniature grooves.
"What kind of animal seems to be the problem and where are they now?" I asked. the more information I got, the quicker I could deal with the problem and the faster I would be out of here.
I handled my animal catcher rod nervously. She had mentioned that they were rather large animals on the phone. I normally wasn't bothered by the size of the animals we caught. Most calmed down pretty quickly after they ate the drugged food we left out (drugged with the mildest sedative possible for their own safety) of when they decided we weren't a threat. Of course, none of them liked going in the big carrier cages but my partner and me, between the two of us, we had it down to a fine art - which meant far less pain and aggravation for everyone all round.
However, a nasty flu bug had wiped out most of our staff this week and we were operating on a shoe string employee capacity. So no partners unless the case was deemed to be an extremely dangerous one.
But the call for this one hadn't seemed too bad - she'd said over the phone that the animals hadn't been aggressive at all, she just wanted them out of her house. My employers had deemed it safe enough that I could attend without backup.
My hands tightened further on the catcher rod. Pink explosion aside, something was really giving me the heebie jeebies in this house and I didn't like it one bit. I wanted to be out of there.
Please, please be something easy - like a turtle or a lost lamb or something like that. Please, please don't be cats. Don't get me wrong, I loved cats and even had several adopted strays of my own. However i couldn't deny that, at heart, they were little shitty sadists and when I got a call out those little shits could keep me chasing them for hours if they found it funny or they were bored.
I really was not in the mood for cats today.
"Vampires." The woman said, startling me out of my gloomy reverie about the one time it had taken me four hours to catch a small brown cat that had wandered into a factory and had lead me a merry, merry chase around their stationery cupboard, at one point managing to impale my thigh with an (admittedly impressively timed) compass.
"I'm sorry, what?"
"Vampires." The woman enunciated slowly. "There are vampires nesting in my basement. I guess they liked the fact the boiler's down there and it's pretty toasty and warm over winter."
"Vampires." I repeated blankly.
"Yeah, I mean, it's not like i begrudge them the room since, you know, I don't use the basement all that much. But they're running up my electricity bill - they're up all night watching telly and going online and leaving the lights on. If they paid some rent that'd be one thing, but they don't. So i want them out."
"I see." I said, my mind whirring until I hit on the only reasonable answer. I heaved a huge inward sigh of relief. The woman was clearly crazy which meant that I did not have to spend the next four hours chasing down a cat - even if it was in a 'warm and toasty' basement.
"I see." I said again, far more brightly this time. "Well I don't think vampires really fall under our jurisdiction, but I'll be happy to take a look for you and assess the situation." I'd better check the basement, just in case there was an animal there that she'd somehow mistaken for a vampire. I'd give social services a call on the way out too, once I was safely in the van and ask them to check on her. If she was imagining people in her house and electrical appliances were being left on, that could be dangerous for her. Upon closer inspection, under her vibrant pink veneer, it did look like she was getting on in years and I could see no photos displayed anywhere that indicated she had any close family.
"This way then." She gestured at me to follow and then led the way through her pink shaded house (I had to admit, despite the incredibly in your face deluge of colour, the shades of pink had clearly been chosen with great care. they all blended well together so that, at some points, it almost felt like I was walking through the soft petalled heart of a rose.
She led me to a small (pink) door that opened onto some dark (pink) wooden stairs that went down into the pitch darkness below.
She fumbled on the wall for the light switch and suddenly the stair case was illuminated. Surprisingly, here at least, she had somewhat deviated from the pink theme and instead papered the walls in a cream wallpaper, patterned with a small pink flower that I had never seen before.
I carefully descended the stairs, one hand on the wall, the other out stretched with my animal catcher rod in front of me. I glanced back behind me, she was watching me descend, an anxious expression on her face.
"Do be careful dear." She called down after me. "They can be a mite tetchy in the day."
Okaaay. I thought to myself. Better to just play along for now - and keep an eye out in case there was some sort of animal down here.
"So why did the vampires say they wanted to nest in your basement?" I called back cheerily, trying to alleviate her sudden nervousness (which, to be frank, was not doing anything for my nerves).
A sudden, bone chilling hiss froze my body rigid.
"They said something about finding all the pink rejuvenating." She called down from somewhere that was now a million miles away from my current situation.
Fighting every voice in my head that begged me me not to, I turned to face what had made that noise.
A wonky box on some sort of stand (a coffin you idiot! my atavistic instincts screamed at me), it's lid propped up against the foot of it was just in front of me. Other boxes were also dotted about the room, unsettling scratching noises starting to emanate from them. I ignored them to focus on the thing that was sitting, half upright but hunched over, glaring at me. Its eyes were sunken red pits, its skin a waxy pasty white and its rose red hair was wild, unbrushed and thick with grime and dust.
Its face came closer and closer until all I could see was a huge dark, dark mouth with sharp, sharp teeth.
I ran back up those stairs faster than a sadistic cat that's just discovered how to open tuna cans and has no need of an owner anymore.
"There are vampires in your basement." I gasped as I leapt through the door and slammed it shut behind me.
"I know." The woman said patiently. "That's what I said."
"There are vampires in your basement!"
She gave me a look. "Would you like a cup of tea?" She eventually offered, once it became clear I wasn't going to get over the whole vampires in the basement thing for a while.
We sat in silence, drinking some sort of herbal concoction she told me the doctor had recommended to her. Ten to one the doctor didn't drink it himself.
"I'm sorry ma'am." I said eventually. "But vampires really aren't our remit. Have you tried a priest?"
She peered down at her mostly still full (pink) mug gloomily. "He didn't even manage to stay for tea."
"I see." I stared at mine until an idea started to form. "You said you didn't mind them being here?"
She shrugged. "They keep themselves to themselves and it;s not like i use the house at night. Sometimes they even buy me groceries. But I can't afford to keep them, not as if they were just some stray cats. They're too expensive."
"Well," I mused. "If they have money to buy groceries, they must have money for other things. Why don't you call a lawyer?"
"A lawyer?" She asked, bewildered.
"Yeah, like a property one. Get them to set you up some sort of tenancy agreement with them. Then you can get some rent and they have the security of knowing they legally have somewhere to stay. I think that's your best bet at the moment. And if they can't pay, I'm sure the lawyers will know someone who can evict them for you."
"A lawyer? Really?" She asked doubtfully. "Won't they just freak out and run like the rest?"
"I don't think they allow you to become a lawyer if you scare easily." I said honestly. "I'm pretty sure they test you on it. There's an office on the main street i recommend. it;s a small local one but there are some tough cookie sin there. I'd bet on them against creature of the night any day."
"Hmm," she said to herself thoughtfully. "Do you know the number?"
I wrote it down for her and said my goodbyes. as i was exiting the pink house, I suddenly realised.
I had absolutely no idea how I was going to explain this to anyone.
No comments:
Post a Comment