Ordinary household items

They came to our house and as they knocked on my door, ice crystals started to appear, spreading quickly across the hallway. I followed them to the kitchen where we were having dinner. A steak and some potatoes. Vegetables too. The meal didn’t stay hot for long. My wife lost her appetite.

They both got their notepads out and activated their pencils. Their frosty blue eyes beamed across the room, bringing out secrets in the walls and details from the floor. My wife dared to ask what they wanted. They cut her off.
“We noticed the way you cut your meat. With a knife. A knife is a deadly weapon – how does that make you feel?”
My wife’s face went blank. What kind of answer did they want?
“Do you use knives on a daily base?”, they asked. “You seem to handle a knife quite.. well”.
“Excuse me, but…”, I started. The move they performed as they turned to me was indescribable. It didn’t really happen. Their focus was on me now and my jaw locked up completely.
“Yeee-es?”
“I just… knives are….”
“Yes!?”
“Ordinary… household… items…”, I stuttered.
(“Knives… ordinary… household… items…”), they wrote.

In the livingroom a few minutes later, they stopped by the fireplace.
“You have had an open fire in here”, they said.
“The winters… they’re cold”, I replied. My wife and our daughter were standing in the doorway. They were both non-apparent, the situation made them lose their grip. Nothing was real.
“Do you know how to start a fire?”, they asked my daughter. She’s 10 and yes, she knows how. She nodded, faintly.
(“Teaching… children… fire…”), they scribbled.

They turned on the radio.
“This programme”, they said, addressing the invisible guy reading the news, “What does it teach you?”
I couldn’t answer, I was dumbstruck.
“Is he telling you things you didn’t know? And if so, how would you know it isn’t a lie?”. The carpet in our cozy little livingroom had turned white. The floor sparkled and every smell turned into a stone cold sting.
(“Unreliable… sources… of… information…”)

They stared at a painting on the wall. I had bought it out of sheer curiosity at the market. The artist had freely and abstractedly interpreted a situation at a restaurant, involving an old man with a beard, a woman in a blue dress, a piano with empty glasses on top and a big toad.
(“Divergent… paintings… on… wall… “)

They spent an entire afternoon. Their notepads were full. Our heads were empty.
They placed electronics.
They put a plaque by the phone.
They left a mark on our door.
“We may come back. We may not come back. Do you or your family want us to come back?”

The carpet in our livingroom is still white, and my wife never regained her appetite.