The house that smears T h a n o s K a l a m i d a s The house ThaT smears Thanos Kalamidas An Ovi eBooks Publication 2025 Ovi eBookPublications - All material is copyright of the Ovi eBooks Publications & the writer C Ovi ebooks are available in Ovi/Ovi eBookshelves pages and they are for free. If somebody tries to sell you an Ovi book please contact us immediately. For details, contact: ovimagazine@yahoo.com No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the writer or the above publisher of this book The house that smears The house that smears Thanos Kalamidas Thanos Kalamidas An Ovi eBooks Publication 2025 Ovi eBookPublications - All material is copyright of the Ovi eBooks Publications & the writer C The house that smears T he town of Lammhult , like a photograph fad- ed with time, held its secrets under a blanket of familiarity. The houses were painted in muted tones, their gardens tidy and well-kept, and the streets seemed to hum with a rhythm so predict- able it almost made the air feel still. In Kronoberg County, where nothing much ever seemed to change, people lived within the confines of their routines, as if the very fabric of the town whispered, We are safe here. But there were those rare moments, small fractures in the surface, when something unfamil- iar would slink through the door like an unwanted guest. And when it did, it had the ability to unravel everything. Wilma Lindberg had seen it all in her sixty-three years loss, change, and the slow creep of time. Her two children had fled to Stockholm, leaving her behind in the house that no longer felt quite like home. The ache of their absence, though constant, Thanos Kalamidas had softened over the years, and in its place had set- tled a certain peace. Her life, simple and methodical, moved with the seasons—one day flowing into the next. There were moments of loneliness, yes, but they were manageable. Until the day Anna Wallin moved in next door. Anna was the kind of woman who felt like she was always arriving, or perhaps always leaving. Just shy of thirty, with the heavy weight of a broken past tucked inside her, she moved to Lammhult in search of something though she wasn’t sure what. The small town, with its whispering streets and unspoken rules, felt cold to her, like a place where even the light didn’t want to settle. Her son, a quiet, thoughtful child, was her tether to reality, but Anna carried a sorrow in her eyes that no one seemed to see. That was, until Wil- ma saw it. One evening, the two of them crossed paths in the hallway, their footsteps echoing in the silence of the building. Anna, arms full of groceries, looked up as Wilma passed, her face soft with a kind of quiet wea- riness. “Long day?” Wilma asked, offering a small smile. Anna paused, shifting the bags to her hip. “It feels The house that smears like a long life,” she replied, her words heavy with something Wilma couldn’t place. Wilma nodded. It was a sentiment she understood too well. “You get used to it,” she said, then hesitated. “Or, you don’t.” Anna managed a faint smile. “I’m not sure I want to.” They stood there for a moment, the weight of un- spoken thoughts between them, before Anna turned and stepped into her apartment. Wilma lingered for a moment longer, her heart quiet with an inexplica- ble feeling one she couldn’t shake. The next day, the new family arrived. At first, it was just a blur of movement above their heads, boxes, furniture, the low murmur of voices muffled through the ceiling. But there was something about them that didn’t sit right with Wilma. The fa- ther, tall and with the kind of silence that was too thick for a man his age, barely spoke to anyone. The mother, elegant and poised, never looked anyone in the eye long enough for them to get comfortable with her. And their daughter, a teenager who never once smiled, kept her eyes cast downward, as though she Thanos Kalamidas were always lost in thoughts too heavy for a girl her age. Anna noticed them too, though she was reluctant to admit it. The family moved like shadows, never fully present, but always there, lingering. There was a tension between them, a certain sharpness in the air that neither Anna nor Wilma could explain. It was in the way the mother would stand at the window, staring out at the street, as if waiting for something to appear. It was in the way the father would leave in the dead of night, his movements too deliberate to be innocent. And it was in the daughter’s strange silence, the kind that felt like a secret wrapped in a question mark. “Have you noticed them?” Anna asked one evening, her voice barely above a whisper. Wilma had just fin- ished washing the dishes and was leaning against the counter, watching the way the light fell across the room. “Yes,” Wilma replied. “There’s something about them.” She paused, her gaze distant. “They don’t be- long here.” Anna bit her lip. “It’s like they’re hiding something. Like they’re running from something.” Her eyes met The house that smears Wilma’s, and for a moment, there was a quiet under- standing between them. And just like that, the thread between them was pulled taut. Neither woman knew it then, but they were about to be drawn into something neither of them had expected. Something that would unravel them both. And all the while, the family upstairs continued their strange, quiet existence, as if waiting for the in- evitable to come crashing through their door. Thanos Kalamidas i. The day the new family moved in, Wilma Lindberg was at the window, her hands lightly gripping the sill as she watched the blue sky fade into dusky or- ange. The late autumn light stretched across the quiet streets of Lammhult, casting long shadows over the rows of houses. It wasn’t her usual habit to watch, but today was different. There was a change in the air, an unfamiliar ripple that made her pause. She had al- ways been an observer of life, content to sit back, sip her tea, and watch the comings and goings of others, but today, her gaze lingered longer than it ever had. In the parking lot beneath her window, she saw them, new faces. A family. The father, a tall man with dark, unkempt hair, was lifting a large cardboard box from the back of a van, his face unreadable. The mother, who had a kind of quiet grace to her, was or- ganizing smaller packages on the ground, her move- The house that smears ments measured and purposeful, as though there was more at stake than just unpacking belongings. The daughter, a teenager with dark, searching eyes, stood apart from them, her attention fixed on her phone, her figure stiff with a tension that Wilma couldn’t quite place. They didn’t look at the neighbours, didn’t wave or offer pleasantries. They were already in their world, separate from everything else. Wilma felt a strange stirring inside her. Something she couldn’t name but knew to be true. There was an unease in the air, a flickering pulse of disquiet that wasn’t easily ignored. The world felt suddenly sharper, as though the edges of it had been pulled into focus, demanding attention. She couldn’t help but watch. She didn’t know why they unsettled her, but she couldn’t shake the feeling. The evening deepened around her, and she stayed at the window long af- ter the family had disappeared into their new apart- ment. The last remnants of sunlight vanished, but the feeling lingered. It was like a song that had ended but left a lingering note hanging in the air. * * * * * Anna Wallin was busy in her own apartment. Thanos Kalamidas The rhythmic hum of the washing machine filled the room, a low, steady sound that had become the soundtrack of her life since she moved to Lammhult. She wiped down the kitchen counters absentminded- ly, her mind elsewhere. The town, with its neat rows of houses and quiet streets, had begun to feel like a shell, a place to exist, but not to truly live. It wasn’t as if she had expected much from Lammhult when she arrived two years ago. The town wasn’t for starting over. It was for hiding, for escaping the parts of life that had grown too loud, too difficult to manage. It was for people like her. She caught sight of the time on her phone and sighed. She had to pick up Jonas from his friend’s house in the next town over. As she pulled on her jacket, she thought about the days that had passed since she last spoke to anyone in the building. She’d exchanged polite words with Wilma in the hallway a few times, but there had been no attempt at real con- versation. She had enough of those in her life already. Still, there was something about Wilma that tugged at Anna, something quiet and knowing that made Anna wonder if, perhaps, this woman might under- stand her. That was a rare thought. And Anna wasn’t sure she wanted to entertain it, not in a place as small and suffocating as Lammhult. The house that smears The door closed softly behind her as she left, the sound of her footsteps disappearing into the quiet of the evening. * * * * * Later that evening, when Anna returned with Jo- nas, she caught sight of Wilma through the window of her apartment, standing there once again, gazing out. The new family’s arrival still fresh in her mind, Anna’s curiosity tugged at her. She wasn’t prone to nosiness, but there was something about them. Something that stuck with her like the scent of a fa- miliar flower blooming in a forgotten corner. The new family had moved in directly above An- na’s apartment. As Anna and Jonas made their way up the narrow staircase to their door, she noticed the father’s silhouette through the open curtains, still standing by the window, still unmoving, as though he had not yet decided where he was supposed to be. His presence in the window was unsettling, like a shadow that stretched too far into the room. Anna stopped for a moment, hand on the banister, watching him without being seen. Wilma’s voice broke the silence, soft but certain. “Do you think they’re happy?” Thanos Kalamidas Anna turned to find Wilma standing behind her, her gaze following the same direction. There was an intensity to Wilma’s question that Anna couldn’t place. “Happy?” Anna repeated. She hadn’t thought about it in those terms. She only knew that they felt out of place, as though they weren’t meant to be here. “I don’t know,” she said finally. “I think they’re hiding something.” She paused. “Like they’re running from something.” Wilma’s eyes shifted, and for a moment, Anna felt as though the older woman were looking into her own thoughts, reading the unspoken parts of her life that she kept buried beneath layers of everyday existence. “Hiding or running,” Wilma said slowly, “sometimes it’s hard to tell.” * * * * * That night, Wilma lay in bed, the sheets cold against her skin, staring at the ceiling. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the new family, not since she first laid eyes on them. There was a tightness in her chest, a sense that something had changed. The air felt different now, thicker somehow. She thought about Anna’s words, about running and hiding and The house that smears wondered if the two were somehow the same. When she finally drifted into sleep, the images of the family swirled in her dreams, like a puzzle whose pieces didn’t quite fit together. She had always be- lieved that time, like a well-worn book, would slow its pace in the later years of life. But as she turned her head toward the window the next morning, the ear- ly light spilling over the floor, she realized that time wasn’t slowing at all. It was gathering speed. And with it, the story of this family was just begin- ning. * * * * * Across the hall, in her apartment, Anna paced back and forth, the phone pressed to her ear. “Yes, I’ll be there soon,” she said, her voice tight, clipped. She had to get back to the routine. Get Jonas ready for school. Keep everything as normal as possible, as if nothing had changed. But even as she spoke, she could feel it, the same undercurrent that had passed between her and Wil- ma the day before. There was something more to this. Something in the air. Something she couldn’t shake. As she hung up the phone, she found herself look- Thanos Kalamidas ing out the window again. Across the street, the new family’s apartment was dark. No sign of them. No movement. She wondered if, perhaps, they were already gone. And if not, why hadn’t she seen them leave? Some- thing, somewhere, wasn’t right. And she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was about to find out what that something was. The house that smears ii. The late afternoon light poured through the thin curtains in Wilma’s apartment, casting long shadows across the hardwood floor. The quiet of the small town outside settled into her bones as she stood at the kitchen counter, absently stirring her tea. Her thoughts, like the gentle swirl of liquid in her cup, were unhurried, but something about the evening felt different, charged with the promise of change. It was then that she heard the knock on the door. Not the insistent pounding of a salesman or the oc- casional friendly knock from one of the neighbours, but a soft, tentative rapping, as if the person on the other side were unsure of their welcome. Thanos Kalamidas She opened the door slowly, not expecting com- pany. But there stood Anna, looking uncharacteristi- cally vulnerable. Her hands were buried deep in her coat pockets, her posture slightly hunched, as if she had gathered the courage to do something she hadn’t done in a long time. “Anna?” Wilma said, surprised but not unkind. “Everything all right?” Anna hesitated for a moment before speaking, her eyes darting to the floor, avoiding Wilma’s gaze. “Do you ever wonder,” she started, her voice soft, “what’s really going on with them?” Wilma didn’t need to ask who she was talking about. The new family. The mysterious strangers who had moved in upstairs. The ones who seemed to have no place in this quiet, sleepy town. She raised an eyebrow, a flicker of curiosity in her gaze. “Who, the family upstairs?” Anna nodded slowly, her eyes now meeting Wil- ma’s, as if she was waiting for her to confirm some unspoken truth. “Something doesn’t feel right about them,” Anna continued, her voice low, tinged with the kind of suspicion that had begun to creep into The house that smears her own thoughts. “They seem... off. Like they’re hid- ing something.” Wilma pursed her lips and leaned against the door- frame, her arms folding across her chest as she stud- ied Anna. She had seen Anna from afar, of course the quiet single mother who kept to herself, always on the edge of things, always just out of reach. There had been moments when Wilma wondered what made Anna tick, what made her stay in a town like this, where so many others had long since moved on. “I noticed the same thing,” Wilma said slowly, her voice measured. She paused, tapping her fin- gers against the doorframe as if considering her next words carefully. “But who’s to say? People carry their secrets, I suppose. Maybe they’re just... adjusting.” Anna let out a short, humourless laugh, shaking her head. “It’s more than that, Wilma. You know it as much as I do. People don’t move like that. Not here, not in Lammhult.” They stood there for a moment, a silent agreement passing between them. It was a strange, inexplicable thing—this shared feeling, this instinct to under- stand the new family’s secrets. Neither of them could put it into words, but the presence of this family in Thanos Kalamidas their small world had stirred something, something that neither of them could ignore. Before Anna could speak again, the moment was interrupted by a soft, almost inaudible knock. It was coming from the hallway, faint but persistent. Wilma turned toward the sound, her expression unreadable. “I should go,” Anna said quickly, her voice sudden- ly tight. She looked toward the stairwell, her hand hovering by the door, reluctant to leave. “I just want- ed to...” “I understand,” Wilma said, her voice softer now, more understanding than it had been a moment ago. “I’ll be here. We’ll figure this out.” Anna hesitated for a moment longer, then stepped back, her footsteps echoing down the hall as she re- treated into the evening. * * * * * The following morning, as Wilma stood in her kitchen, preparing breakfast, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was about to happen. The air outside had a crispness to it that hinted at the change of seasons, but it was more than just the weather that had her on edge. Something in her bones told her