Use This Proven Method To Have The Best House In Any Neighborhood

Once there was a row of houses, all one level, with big bay windows facing the south. All the neighbors had equal access to the beautiful sunlight that would fall in through the south windows on their plants, on the wood floor boards, illuminating the little dust motes that would float in the still air, until one of the neighbors would open a window and the breeze would push through the sunlit house, and the plant leaves would dance ever so slightly, as a record turned on a player, strumming guitar to the sound of someone frying veggies in a cast iron skillet in the kitchen.

Then one day a certain neighbor named Paul decided he wanted an even better view of the sun and so he had a team of builders come in and put a second story on his house. It was glorious when it was finished. Even bigger bay windows and more light and a view of all the rows of houses down the street. He could even see above the trees and he brought friends over to show them the view.

But the neighbor just to the north of Paul, Jethro, was now cast in shadow. His once well lit living room in which he’d sit on his fat soft couch and read graphic novels from the library all day long was now cast in shadow. And Jethro’s mood became dour. Jethro now got one direct little sunbeam in the morning, and one in the afternoon. The rest of the day, he had to turn on a lamp to read his graphic novels. He became so incensed that he marched over to Paul’s house and broke in to read his graphic novel in Paul’s living room. When Paul came home he said, “What the fuck are you doing in my house?” Jethro replied, “I’m taking back the sunlight you robbed from me you son of a bitch!” They came to blows right there and Jethro had to be hauled out of the house by other neighbors.

Every day Jethro sat in his dark room and brooded, wanting to kill Paul. “Fuck him,” he finally decided and had a team of builders come to build two stories onto his own house. One to see the sun, and one to give a middle finger to Paul.

When his glorious three-story mansion was complete, Jethro was back in the loving bliss of beautiful, day long sunlight. On the top floor, he had a sliding door that opened to a small patio, and he opened this door so that clean, pure wind would flow into his sunlight basking living room, and he invited his friends over to play guitar and banjo while they served roasted tomatoes, eggplant, and chickpeas, and lit incense and had sex parties. Jethro knew Paul could hear all the sounds spilling out of that sliding door.

Paul had a grudge of course, but Jethro’s new three-story house really bothered his two neighbors to the north, Joyce and the next few houses up, Caroline, and Chester. All three of these neighbors were now cast in darkness all the livelong day. Chester never minded much because he always stayed in his basement, making model train sets, and then hijacking those train sets with little cowboy bandit figurines that he cast and painted himself. Chester basically lived in this dank basement, in an old bathrobe that used to be his grandfather’s.

Caroline was very disconcerted however, because she spent years cultivating a luscious garden with a fountain, a walking path, fruit trees, and a patio table where she hosted friends of hers, women she knew since before her childhood home burned in a fire.

Joyce and Caroline were once very good friends, but Joyce was now using this opportunity as an excuse to spend a lot of time over at Jethro’s jam sessions. And so when Caroline voiced her concerns to Joyce, Joyce just told her, “Come to Jethro’s, it’s wonderful.” But Caroline loved her garden and was sad that now not only was her garden cast in darkness, but her best friend was a traitor.

Caroline went over to Chester’s, to try to convince him to stir up shit against Jethro, but Chester just wanted to make a model of the Hardy Boys’ New England town in which he had grand plans to reenact all the mystery adventures from the novels. And then he asked Caroline to stay as the belt of his robe accidentally came undone.

But Caroline was about solving her own mystery, the mystery of how the fuck to deal with these assholes Jethro and Joyce.

So she went to Paul. Paul was fuming about the taller, fatter, stiffer house that Jethro had, even though Paul’s sunlight was not affected in the least, and furthermore he’d started this all. But that didn’t concern him. What concerned him was that Jethro had a taller house, and the laughter of bitches coming from that third story sliding glass door all day long.

Paul said he could not himself go up to Jethro’s because they did not like each other. “But”, Paul said, “You can go.” Caroline didn’t want to go. She just wanted her garden parties and her friend Joyce back. “But this is how you get your friend back,” Paul convinced her. Paul persuaded Caroline that she must seduce Jethro and sleep with him, thus rending the connection he, Jethro, had with Joyce. And once Joyce felt betrayed by Jethro, she would have no recourse but to return to Caroline’s garden.

So Caroline put on a nice, loose fitting linen dress with a belt at the waist, and braided her hair, and went calling on Jethro’s jam party. She made polite conversation and smiled at Jethro all day long, and as the sun went down and the heat of the day lingered in the air, Jethro undid Caroline’s belt and felt the curves of her body under her linen dress.

The next day in Caroline’s dark garden, obscured by Jethro’s towering three story annoyance, Joyce came over to spit in her face, and left and went to weep on Paul’s shoulder.

Paul and Joyce fucked on Paul’s couch and carpet, in front of his huge glass coffee table, basking in the sunlight.

Jethro had been developing a crush on Joyce during those days when they would sit in a circle, play songs, sing together, joke and laugh, and their smiling gazes would linger on each other. Jethro and Joyce had gotten to the point where they were holding long hugs when they said goodbye, and sometimes a kiss on the cheek as friends filed out the front door for the night, eager to have the lazy sunlight fiesta the next day.

Jethro was so incensed over Paul and his shitty behavior that one windy night he snuck next door with a can of gasoline and poured it all around the base of Paul’s house before setting fire to it. If Paul had been home, he might have caught the fire alarms sooner. But Paul was over at Joyce’s, dicking her down balls deep, and the wind picked up and as Paul’s house set on fire, the flames jumped over to Jethro’s, and from Jethro’s to Joyce’s, and from Joyce’s to Caroline’s, and from Caroline’s to Chester’s. All five houses burned to a black husk.

In the morning, Paul, Jethro, Caroline, and Joyce stood in the front yard, in the new dawn sun, feet damp with dew, looking at the rotted out remains of their once idyllic paradise, and the fire department carried out the charred remains of Chester.

Now they were all homeless.