What Evil Lurks in the Basement?

In dreams, the basement is the repository of the deep, dark unconscious, the shadow of the soul, filled with the things best hidden from the light, from ourselves. The basement of the lovely blue house is a little bit like the locked room in Bluebeard's castle, a place full of horrors that is off limits to the Lovely Lady, despite the fact that she owns it. At least that is how the Ogres would have it.

Though the Lovely Lady has stuff in said basement that she's not so worried will get mouldy and dank, like old love letters, wedding dresses, and the tiny stove that belonged to her once lovely mother, access is restricted by the evil alarm system that the Ogres have installed to protect their mounds of junk. Granted, all those plastic santas and decapitated snowmen might be worth something in the Ogre Kingdom, and the mouldy basement might even be where they keep their cache of illegal cigarettes, with which they further poison the world (tobacco must stay moist, I imagine). Lady Ogre, in days of yore before the Flag Incident, once said that they used to have parties in the low-ceilinged, dank, cat-urine aromatic basement (I know I mentioned the 4 cats and 1 caged rabbit before, who through no fault of their own have been imprisoned by the Ogres and have thus picked up their bad habits). She remembered the party days fondly. The Lovely Lady just smiled and nodded and added nothing, for what does she know of Ogre ways?

When she first moved in, she was immediately given restrictions in the basement--where she could put her few things, and what she could indeed put down there since the Ogres were not willing to move their crap out of the way, but were more than happy to move hers around if they didn't like where she put it. She was also informed that the alarm would be tripped should she go into the basement when they were not home. In addition, in the winter, the door to the basement was completely covered by the opaque plastic that the Ogres hammered into the new wooden deck, making it impossible to get into the basement unless she walked through their pack-ratty apartment.

The Lovely Lady didn't like this, but they came to a compromise (in hindsight she should have swung the ax right away, and off with their stupid ogre heads, but this is not the way of Lovely Ladies). The Alarm Code for Dummies was handed to the Lovely Lady, and when she needed the basement and they were not home, she plugged her nostrils, unlocked the door to their apartment, and keyed in the 4 digits that might as well have been 1111.

Since the Flag Incident, the code has been changed, and the Lovely Lady has been threatened with prosecution should she enter the premises of the Ogres without just cause. Because they are Ogres, thus apparently not ruled by human laws, they do not care that this whole alarm change and the prohibiting of the Lovely Landlady's entry into the basement is illegal. Mind you, they don't care that selling reservation cigarettes is illegal, as well as other things best left unsaid for the time being (remember the silver bullet?).

The other day she managed to slip into the basement, and was in for a great shock. The Ogres have cleaned out the basement. Even the cat urine no longer makes the eyes water. They are clearly up to something. But they are up to the wrong thing, and the Lovely Lady is happy that the remnants of their stinking souls have been scraped out of there. It will be easier on everyone when it is time for them to move.

They have, in other words, done something nice for me--improved the state of the basement--in hopes of using it as a defense against me when the letter arrives asking them to leave. But the rub is that I am not going to even mention the stink of the basement, their obstinate territorialness, obtuse pettiness, their cluttered souls.

That is not my plan at all.