To Michael the world was a place, real and tangible. To his parents, the world what of Lenard Street they could see from the front window, they lived in a snow globe, stuck in a moment, looking out at the rest of the world.
The house was cool in the summer and warm in the winter. It was clean, immaculately so, Mrs. Clifford liked to clean, and always smelled like freshly baked bread, muffins, brownies or cookies, Mrs. Clifford baked when she was sad, which was often.
The fenced in yard had a garden with tomato plants, pumpkins and flowers. It also had a dog house, the dog who resided there buried under the single tree which stood proudly amongst the over grown grass, kitty corner from the comic book filled shed where Michael had spent the majority of his younger years.
The Clifford's had a tree at Christmas, a turkey at Thanksgiving and they ate dinner together every night without exception. They also had Jean.
Jean was the kind of woman that made bad little kids in line at the grocery store hide behind their mothers. She was tall with blonde hair she kept pulled back in a bun so tight her eyes looked like slits. She always wore pants suits, always wore high heels and always smelled like old lady perfume.
She came once a week and made Michael's Dad pee in a cup.
Then there was Sean.
Sean was the human equivalent of a puppy. Too young to be taken seriously, he was always smiling, always upbeat and never was on time, instead arriving unpleasantly early.
He came once a month to "chat" with his "favorite buddy" Michael.
On the first Tuesday of every month Michael would come home from school to find Sean sitting cross legged on his bed, eagerly waiting for him.
Michael's Mom talked to a mousey middle aged woman named Candace every Thursday at four but Michael didn't know much about that as their meetings were always held outside in the garden.
From the outside, the house looked dark and empty, the house of a monster, but it wasn't it was just a house and it was just people that lived in side.
Michael's parents, despite speculations made by the town weren't bad people. By no stretch of the imagination were they good parents or friendly neighbors or decent home owners.
The things Mrs. Clifford baked were hard as rocks and dinner was always cereal Michael bought at Olaf's Family Grocery Store, armed with a grocery list and a Bridge Card every two weeks.
Mr. Clifford smoked in the house making everything from the carpet to Michael's hair smell like stale breath and tobacco. It was always Michael's pee he gave to Jean and in Michael's opinion it was his father's fault as to why his Mom's brain skipped like a scratched CD.
The house was strange and its inhabitants more so but it wasn't scary or dangerous and so Jean started dropping in less, Sean's visits became less and less frequent and Candace stopped coming all together.
And then there was no more Christmas, no more birthdays, dinner became a rarity, after nearly burning the place down Mrs. Clifford stopped baking, the home became a house, and the family inside, a scene in a snow globe with everyone on the outside waiting for it to shatter.
