Yesterday I went for a walk to Nouziers, north-west.
On the way, just before Bordessoule, right on the border of the road, I met a very strange house. Obviously it was abandoned. Through the broken window of the front door, one could see a kitchen table and chairs. I entered.
The first room was the kitchen. It was full of what apparently used to be the last owners' entire furniture. There was a brown sofa, an armchair, an opened and empty fridge, a gas stove, a sink. All furniture had the 80's style.
The people obviously had taken most, but not every of their things, and here and there lay bits and pieces of their past. On the floor was a cardboard box with crockery. In a a shelf with a glass door was a Contrex mineral bottle, a sugar box, a mustard pot, and other kitchen staples. On the table lay a plastic tablecloth. On the fridge stood a small glass pot with pens. Underneath the sink were lined plastic bottles of cleaning products. Playing cards were scattered everywhere. An untouched crossword book, priced in Francs, lay on the armchair.
The room had been somehow apparently damaged by time and by somebody. The fireplace was filled with debris and plastic cables. Where previously stood a door to the garage was now a huge whole in the stone wall, which debris had been piled in the garage behind.
The kitchen led to two bedrooms. In one of them were piled a bunch of foam mattresses. A nice wooden wardrobe stood in a corner. Its two doors were wide opened, and revealed a rich content of decomposing wool sweaters, winter jackets, bottles of body products such as shampoo and disinfectant, an unused packet of birth control pills, other kinds of pills, and Picsou comic books. A bag was tagged with a plane sticker to Montpellier. Vine crept inside the room through the opened window.
In the other room there was no furniture but piles of various little things, candles, matches, a detective novel, an empty Renaud tape box, a broken tape player, a woman's shoe.
I went up the second floor on the wobbly staircase. Parts of the house were falling apart and I wasn't totally assured of the solidity of the staircase.
I tried to find answers to the questions bombarding my mind. Who had been these people? Obviously, a young family. What happened to them? Who would leave like this, without bothering to clean up his personal things, nor to find a taker for the fridge and the gas stove? Simply abandon the house, and not bother to try to sell it?
I don't remember exactly what I saw upstairs. I think, two other rooms, other foam mattresses and other pieces and things here and there. I started to feel a bit troubled, and my uneasiness had started to overcome my curiosity. So I left.
