The Humble Request

by Magpie Hershberg

There is some­thing, I feel, holy about the long ta­ble of my ban­quet hall. Un­der the finest of chan­de­liers lies a body of ma­hogany atop ex­pert­ly carved legs. If I were more a man of re­li­gion, I would say this ta­ble was craft­ed by God him­self, cre­at­ed not in a broad act of di­vine will, but metic­u­lous­ly, as if he had tak­en up the chis­el of Michelan­ge­lo and de­cid­ed to make the next David, out of wood, and just for me.

It is the length of about twelve din­ner plat­ters, and, beau­ti­ful­ly, the width of ex­act­ly one large din­ner plate. When you are seat­ed at my ta­ble, you may look up from your meal to see the walls, which are paint­ed uni­form­ly black, and all the paint­ings and or­na­ments which adorn them. You will not see an­oth­er man’s face, for the ta­ble is too thin to ac­com­mo­date him tak­ing up the same space as you. Your legs would tan­gle and your plates would clash against each oth­er. That is the beau­ty of this ta­ble.

It is one beau­ti­ful part of the beau­ti­ful en­tire­ty of my home. In east­ern Nor­folk it lies, nest­ed com­fort­ably with­in dozens of acres of to­bac­co mon­ey land and con­nect­ed by one road to the rest of the world. It be­longed once to my fa­ther, and to his fa­ther be­fore him. It is the most per­fect land in all of Eng­land. One can look out most windows with­out see­ing a sin­gle build­ing, only bright grass en­croached upon by a peppering of trees.

That said, it would be fool­ish to mistake the land for the source of this property’s beauty. In­deed, I’ve not so much as opened a win­dow to smell the breeze in at least a few years. And I find the feel of pol­ished stone and fine rugs to be much gen­tler on my feet than that of grass or cob­bled road. Every room con­tains with­in it mul­ti­tudes that are far more fas­ci­nat­ing than any of the out­side world has to of­fer. And they are for my eyes only.

I spend every day strolling through the halls and in and out of each room. There were many rooms when I first had au­thor­i­ty over the house, and thir­ty-some years later, there are many more.

As of late, I have been frequenting the oldest of the three trophy rooms. After significant neglect, I’ve found my­self mak­ing up for lost time. There are heads of great bucks, wolves, and some crea­tures more exot­ic—a few li­ons, a leop­ard, and many more crea­tures from all around the globe.

There is a grand fire­place in this room, which pro­vides gen­tle light in lieu of windows. It al­ways burns just bright enough to il­lu­mi­nate the snarling teeth of the beasts. I have not once touched the fire, stocked its wood, poked it with the iron tools by its side. And yet, I will an­nounce to the emp­ty halls my in­ten­tion to vis­it this room, and by the time I ar­rive, I can feel the fire’s warmth brush­ing my face and ca­ress­ing my lungs as I breathe it in. What a fine room it is.

It is a slight walk from this tro­phy room, but an­oth­er room I find my­self in quite often is the grand tea room. This room, too, seems to an­tic­i­pate my ar­rival when I alert the stretch­ing cor­ri­dors on my way there. I ar­rive to tea, still hot, warm cook­ies and pas­tries, arranged neat­ly and com­plete­ly to my lik­ing.

I of­ten take this time to at­tend to cor­re­spon­dence, what lit­tle I have of it to write these days. Oc­ca­sion­al­ly there ar­rives a let­ter on my desk, out of thin air, from some ran­dom name, dis­tant rel­a­tive, what have you. Most of them ask to meet, tell me to leave my es­tate, in­sist I must be de­pressed stay­ing here by my lone­some. It is ut­ter non­sense, and I tell them as much in my re­spons­es. Rarely am I both­ered by some­one again af­ter I ex­plain how won­der­ful my life­style tru­ly is.

Most of the let­ters I write, in truth, are re­quests. Usu­al­ly, for ex­ten­sions onto the manor. I care lit­tle for the spec­i­fi­ca­tions, I know it is all tak­en care of some­how. All I need to be hap­py in this world is the oc­ca­sion­al new room to en­joy, and I am blessed with a life that gives me noth­ing but. I write down a sim­ple con­cept, leave the note any­where at all, and with­in mere weeks there is a new door down some hall.

I nev­er know where the new rooms are, at first. For years, with the slow­er pace I used to roam, it might take even a month or two to en­counter my new room. Now, I must con­fess, my pa­tience has been wear­ing thin. It is an em­bar­rass­ing habit, I ad­mit, that from the day af­ter I re­quest a room, I be­gin to stalk the halls like a starv­ing cat.

I know it is un­be­com­ing of me. I was not raised to prowl like an an­i­mal, to peek be­hind cor­ners as if hunt­ing prey. In the days af­ter I re­quest a new room I be­come fever­ish. I do not re­turn to my bed­room for days, in­stead tak­ing what lit­tle rest I get on the fine fur­ni­ture of the var­i­ous rooms I pass. In these times I eat very lit­tle, for I know noth­ing will sate me re­gard­less but a new door, a new cham­ber. I al­ways find it, in due time. The col­or will re­turn to my face, and I snap out of my beast­li­ness.

For some time, any­ways. I might be ill. I might be dy­ing. I feel I might need these rooms to live. The walls of my home are beau­ti­ful, and grand, and per­fect, and will choke me, and I love them dear­ly, and I would nev­er leave them.

I am a man of log­ic. I am not prone to su­per­sti­tion. But as of late, I think there may be some­thing ethe­re­al bent on pun­ish­ing me. This manor is emp­ty, but for me. I make sure of it. But in those mo­ments of delir­i­um, the days be­tween my re­quests for ex­pansion and my en­counter of the ex­pan­sion, I swear I hear them. Foot­steps. There is an ap­pari­tion here, and I tell you, this house does not creak but when it is here, it does.

Foot­steps on wood, foot­steps on pol­ished stone and mar­ble, foot­steps on rug. I hear them. Al­ways in the next hall. To the right, to the left, it walks. There is some­thing in this place be­side me. That has not been the case in years. I’ve not once called out for it, I do not know what it wants from me, and I want noth­ing from it but its dis­appear­ance. It does even­tu­al­ly dis­ap­pear, for some time, any­ways. Once I have found my new room, the specter dis­si­pates, not to be heard again un­til a new room is re­quested.

I wouldn’t blame some­one for think­ing I’ve gone mad, hear­ing foot­steps that aren’t there. I pon­dered the pos­si­bil­i­ty for months. But that is not the case. This time, I’ve seen the spir­it.

Just two days ago, as sum­mer hail knocked at my win­dows, I penned a re­quest. A sim­ple one- a grand green­house, brim­ming with ex­ot­ic flow­ers and lined with vines. Be­cause while I do not long for any­where else, there are a few nat­ur­al fra­grances I have yet to en­counter, and I would like to have them at my con­ve­nience.

I fell back into my re­cent rou­tine short­ly there­after. Fran­ti­cal­ly in­spect­ing the halls at a speed that push­es the lim­its of my aged form. Every wall is dec­o­rat­ed to the utmost, so when I must take a mo­ment to rest, I dare not lean, lest I dam­age any­thing.

I live like this now. Night or day are no mat­ter, and there is lit­tle dif­fer­ence be tween the halls which are lit and the halls which are dark.

I saw it, by the en­trance to the li­brary. A form, pale, hu­man­like. I could not tell if it were a man or a woman, but I sup­pose that does not mat­ter, as it was cer­tain­ly a spir­it. It said noth­ing. I do not be­lieve it knew I was there be­fore it. It traced a hand along the door­frame ever so slow­ly. It was then I felt some­thing icy climb up my throat and grasp at the base of my tongue. I fled, then, and holed up in a loung­ing room un­til the nau­sea set­tled.

Again I saw it, by the ground floor’s din­ing hall. Still as death, it leaned and hovered over the line where the floor meets the wall’s edge. Held taut be­tween its hands was some kind of tape or rope, I could not bear to watch long enough to fig­ure out what it was. It held the strand to the floor and did noth­ing else.

I am over­come by a sick­ly feel­ing sim­ply re­call­ing it, the way that for just a sec­ond, it turned its head and flicked its eyes my way. I swear, in that mo­ment, I thought I would die. That my heart would re­tire or that my en­tire body would turn to stone. Again, I fled.

I thank god that I did not see it again af­ter that en­counter. It in­hab­its all my wak­ing thoughts, even still. Despite the all-con­sum­ing ter­ror that filled my dazed be­ing at that point, I had to con­tin­ue search­ing for my new room. There is no choice in­volved, it is as au­to­mat­ic and nec­es­sary as breath­ing. Over days, my vi­sion be­gan to blur, the sub­dued col­ors of every hall swirled togeth­er to soak be­hind my eyes and splash against my brain. Every sec­ond torn from the oth­er by can­dle flick­er and clock tick.

In desperation, I searched every oth­er room as well. Each has the same fine­ly crafted loung­ing couch, the leather un­blem­ished despite years of use. I could not tell the spine of one shelved book from an­oth­er. Words them­selves de­tached them­selves from my mind, leav­ing only in­scrutable let­ters. The sounds of my own foot­steps scraped my ear drums and stirred my stom­ach. The glass eyes of the mount­ed tro­phy an­i­mals would melt out of their sock­ets and down through the floor if I stared too long.

Nev­er had it tak­en so long to find a new room. There came a point, where, in the same de­spair a man would con­sid­er the bar­rel of a gun point­ed to his fore­head, I ques­tioned if the green­house had been built at all—if it would ever be built, if any more rooms would be built at all.

In my de­spair, I took an ac­tion that I am still ut­ter­ly re­morse­ful for. I pray that this per­fect, beau­ti­ful, home will for­give my trans­gres­sion and still see my undy­ing love for it.

There is one exit from this manor, the very front doors, heavy and grand. They have gone long un­used, though still pol­ished, as is every­thing here. I was a fool, and let an un­grate­ful­ness pos­sess me for just a mo­ment, and opened those doors. Against the wis­dom I nor­mal­ly have in abun­dance, I tried to leave.

I swung open the doors and it was then I saw it. The lush­est of green­ery, im­port­ed from dis­tant lands, bush­es and gor­geous flow­ers, the fra­grance of which waft­ed into my nos­trils and calmed my nerves. Be­yond the fo­liage, pale green glass, just translucent enough for sun­light to reach the plants be­low. A sun of stained glass, a green house.

I re­al­ized once again how blessed I have been to have such a home which bends so gra­cious­ly to my will and in such el­e­gant man­ner. It is en­tire­ly ef­fi­cient, now. There was no use for the front doors. There has not been use for them in many, many years.

Yes, the green­house is the per­fect seal. A closed loop, for I and I alone. A pre­cious ship in a bot­tle, fi­nal­ly corked. I am ut­ter­ly blessed in my soli­tude, and I can be cer­tain now that the halls of my home shall stand haunted by no one.