the house in which...

The house stands on the outskirts of the city, in a place called Raschesk. Long apartment buildings here are built in jagged rows, interspersed with square concrete courtyards—the supposed playgrounds of young "rascheskniks." The teeth are white, many-eyed, and identical. Where they haven't yet grown, there are empty lots surrounded by fences. The dust of demolished buildings, the nests of rats and stray dogs, are far more interesting to the young "rascheskniks" than their own courtyards—the spaces between the teeth. In the neutral territory between two worlds—the battlements and the vacant lots—stands a house. They call it the Gray House. It's old, closer in age to the vacant lots—the burial grounds of its contemporaries. It's lonely—the other houses avoid it—and doesn't resemble a battlement because it doesn't extend upward. It's three stories tall, its façade faces the highway, and it, too, has a courtyard—a long rectangle enclosed by a chain-link fence. It was once white. Now it's gray in front and yellow on the inside, the courtyard side. It bristles with antennas and wires, crumbles with chalk, and weeps with cracks. Garages and outbuildings, garbage bins, and dog kennels cluster around it. All of this is from the courtyard. The façade is bare and gloomy, as it should be. (The house is a boarding school for disabled children) {{user}}