She was rubenesque in her appearance, and I caught her robbing my house.
She wasn't the typical robber dressed in stealth black clothing. She was dressed to go shopping for designer bags and dresses, which actually surprised me when I came up on her in my kitchen rifling through the cutlery. It took her a few minutes before she realized she wasn't alone. Then she reached into her shoulder bag to take out her gun, but by then I'd already thrown the cast-iron frying pan in her direction, which hit her square on the temple, knocking her to the kitchen floor. I could hear her groaning in pain as I walked up to her."Aaah, fuck," she rolled back and forth. "Fuuuuuck."
"Get up and get out, before I call the police," I told her while removing the gun from her bag. I stood back and waited until she got to her feet.
"Why'd you have to throw that thing at my head for?" She complained while righting herself on the kitchen counter. "You could have killed me."
"Says the person with the gun trying to rob my house," I corrected her.
She wobbled a bit as I held the kitchen door open for her, so she could leave. Once she was out the door, I escorted her down the street where she parked her car at the end of the block. The second she got in and started her car, and pulled away from the sidewalk, the police rolled up, surrounding her car. She was arrested. That's the best thing that could have happened to her.
She was out after 6 months, and in 6 months, she was back trying to rob my house. I caught her in the upstairs walk-in closet. Again, she had no clue I was there until I locked the door behind me. This time, I had a gun on her. Her old one.
"Sit," I motioned to the floor, so she sat. "Why?" I asked. "Why this house? Why not some other house? Why this one of all the houses?"
"The history, mainly," she shrugged. "Old historical homes have old historical people living in them, who have old money, and I'm all about it."
"I'm not gonna go on about how smart you are, and how you should make proper choices in your life because trying to rob this house is your choice," I told her. "Here's a choice for you, and I suggest you take it. Leave, and never come back. If you come back a third time, you will never leave."
I let her walk out the front door and hoped she'd be smart about it, but she wasn't. A couple of years passed, and one night, while hosting a dinner party in my house, I saw her there mingling with the guests. Rather than make a scene, I tapped on my wine glass with my fork to call everyone's attention.
"I thought it might be fun if we could go around the room and introduce ourselves by sharing a little bit about who we are, what we do, and why we've decided to attend this evening's get-together." If there's one thing I know about most people, it's that they love to talk about themselves. Here was an opportunity for that to happen.
Fortunately, there were only a handful of people, so the stories weren't painfully long and drawn out. The first person, an accountant with a law firm named Eugene Liau, admitted that there was not much to tell. He grew up in Ma'ema'e and lived a normal, non-eventful life. Graduated from high school and went to college for accounting. Next was Grace Fong, who'd been a PBX operator at the Hyatt for all of her life, and now that she was soon to retire, she was looking forward to spending time with her grandchildren. Alan Ho'omalia was the same way. After a lifetime of working at the docks, it was time to rest, relax, and spend time with his family. Finally, it was her turn. Taking a sip of her sparkling wine, she said, "I'm here to rob all of you of your belongings." She put the wine glass down on the table and removed her gun. "Place everything on the tablecloth, empty out your wallets, your purses, and whatever else you have on you."
Everyone complied while simultaneously looking at me. I nodded, and everyone emptied out everything they had. She, the woman whose name I never knew, was Eden until she told me, gathered up the tablecloth of her loot, hoisted it over her shoulders like Santa Claus, and wished us all a good evening while pointing her gun at us.
No one made an effort to stop her; in fact, everyone got out of her way.
***
We were surprised when we found out that, for all of her expensive clothes and make-up, and fancy car she drove, Eden lived in Mayor Wright's Housing. We so much as told her when she woke up to find us standing around her bed. "Who would have thought you lived here, of all places?"
"Please," she begged. "My kids and my parents are sleeping in the next room, take me. It's my fault, I'm the one you want."
"Oh, we've already killed your kids and your parents," I reassured her. "You don't have to worry about that anymore."
We wrapped her body up in her bed sheet after drugging her. Getting back to my house in Manoa, we took her body to the basement and performed the ceremony. It had been so long that I had forgotten how lengthy the ceremony was. When it was over, we all retired upstairs to the kitchen. We were all famished by this point. Eden finally came upstairs, and when she saw us, she ran straight for the door. Pulling the portal back, she went to leave, but never made it past the door. In fact, she never made it past any door or window in the house. "I told you if you ever came back a third time, you wouldn't be able to leave."
"What did you do to me?" She demanded.
"We haven't done anything," I laughed. "You've done it to yourself. You liked robbing this house so much that we've made you a literal part of it. Anything that happens to this house will happen to you. You are immortal, you will never age, never be sick, and you'll always have the strength of ten men. The catch is that you can never LEAVE the house."
Try as she might, time and time again, she found what I told her to be true. She could never leave. People could come and visit and spend time with Eden, but they were the only ones who could leave. That would be good for them, but what were they going to do once they figured out that Eden never left the house and that she never aged? It's what the house wanted, which is why it allowed us to leave it after so long, because we had found our replacement. We didn't work at any of those jobs; we just said that so Eden wouldn't suspect. We'd stay with her, we'd use money to move about the world as we learned about it from the internet. We'd age naturally until we finally left this mortal existence. Eden hated us for it, but she'll do the same once her replacement comes along. Ah, sweet death, finally we will be able to greet thee.
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