EVY WESSEL

Paula Maloney's room

This is a wonderful but endangered rhinoceros, a discarded room in a discarded house. I cannot physically enter so measurements are approximate.

From the street corner a reflection of deciduous tree trunk and bare branches in the large front-most window of the house, of our room, suggests an unlikely base for the large old evergreen rising up behind the house, part of a stand of trees on the far side, and back, of the small property. The modest house has been empty a while, and there are notices taped to one of the windows so I am tempted to approach with stealth. Instead I respectfully use the front walk. It is November and pearl grey sky reflects through a lacework of bare tree branches onto the surface of windows I am trying to see into. I try windows all around the house, my camera's view often blocked by condensation, reflections, and, at the back, interiors too dark to penetrate.

The rooms of the house have solid wood floors. The ceilings are smooth, while the plaster walls are unevenly rough, making repairs invisible and lending texture to a fine home. The plaster walls curve into ceilings, all one surface except for the change in texture and orientation. Doorways without wood framing follow this example and curve overhead. Windows are large and multi-paned, piercing every wall. Our room is furthest forward in the building and would make a good studio space. In a modern house it would be a garage, wasting the best light available to the structure. The window with the 3 no trespassing notices is set into the side wall of our room – an 8 foot long wall perpendicular to, and to the left of, the front door. The warnings are printed on 8 1/2" x 11" paper which fits into the square panes with at least an inch to spare. The window is 3 panes across and 4 high, making it approximately 3 feet by 4 feet in size. Condensation, and the papers, block the view into the room so I go around the corner to the front-most part of the house to try the larger window which faces the street. The middle pane of this window is the same size as the whole of the other one, 3 feet wide by 4 feet high, an unbroken sheet of glass. Sashed window frames on either side are each a little over a foot wide, making the whole of the front window over 6 feet wide. I am in front of the middle pane, and my head and torso extend above the bottom of the frame as I look through my sky and branch framed shadow into the room.

A discarded room, the creamy off-white paint of the ceiling and walls has a ragged edge which was previously hidden by now missing base boards. In the light from the 2 windows I guess the dimensions to be 8 and half feet from floor to ceiling, 10 feet across, and maybe 12 feet to the wall opposite. On this opposite wall is a blank uninhabited stare that makes me think of my grandfather post-aneurysm. The eyes are 2 shelf alcoves with 4 shelves each counting the base. The left one is all black, the right one also black but 2/3s mirrored at the back with black sides and upper shelf. They are set midway up the wall to either side of a black fireplace mantle. The shelf alcoves are taller than they are wide, with curved tops and flat bottoms, like giant cartoon eyes 2 feet across and over 3 feet tall, only the mirrored eye seeming open. Their precise edges and black paint contrast with the rough plaster face of the wall they are set into. Between them, the mantel, about 5 and a half feet wide and flush with the wall, is topped with an inset mirror filling a broad shallow arch which, like the walls, is white and curves up into the ceiling about 4 feet above the mantel top. The mirror ends a foot before that. The 4 foot by 2.5 foot hearth gapes at floor level with a disconnected conduit, curled at the back, no longer breathing warmth into the room. The wood floor extends unbroken out of this unoccupied mouth like a blanketing tongue reaching to lick the base of the wall I am looking through. The wood is warm brown, more alive in colour than the black and white of the wall and it's empty features.

On the floor, close to the base of the left wall, is a forced air vent that probably turned the false fire from a necessity into a luxury. It's placement suggests afterthought, extending into the room rather than running along the wall, a hazard for high heeled shoes. In that left wall are 2 two outlet wall plugs, both set 1 foot above the floor. One sits about 1 and a half feet from the corner and is painted to match the wall. The other is another 4 feet further along the wall and is bare with ragged paint edges, the cover removed. At the same height, but a few inches from the right side of the fireplace, is another barely discernible outlet with cover still intact.

In the right wall, about 2 and a half feet from the far corner, is a conventional squared-off doorway but with a heavy wood frame. I cannot tell if there is a door but do not think so since the entranceway to the house is in the hall behind that doorway and an opened door would be in the way. The reflection in the mirrored shelf alcove to the right of the mantel, the one open eye, shows what seems to be a switch plate next to the doorway. It is hard to see but it looks to be a single switch. The switch is on the near side of the door, and several feet after it, further along the wall towards this end of the room, is the first window with it's trespassing notices, backwards language lit by the daylight shining through. The framing of the window is thick and solid like that of the doorway.

Looking back into the mirror above the mantle I see the reflected ceiling which is broken up by 1/2" sharp edged molding suggesting 9 " wide beams. 2 pairs of beams run the length of the room by the walls, the space between the beams of each pair being maybe 2 feet, and 2 pairs of beams run the width in the same way. Where the beams intersect at the corners they frame square depressions which have been painted black to match the alcoves and fireplace. The ceiling is otherwise the same creamy off-white as the walls. In the large space in the middle of the ceiling is an old fashioned glass domed light fixture with the glass missing, bulbs bare.

Backing away from the window, letting the sky blanket the glass and hide the room, I turn and move back towards the road. I use the front walk again even though my scooter is parked by the small decaying garage at the back of the house.