Solitude or Spooks?

On moving from a rundown overgrown house…
Ricardo: Eventually, you stop noticing the mountains because you’ve spent too long staring at them.
Edwin: So you think it dulls one? That solitude becomes confinement?
Ricardo: It’s not solitude—it’s predictability. I came looking for peace, and I found it. But peace turns into stillness, and stillness into a kind of quiet resignation. After a while, you don’t try to reach goals. You settle. And the trees grow over the house. 
Edwin: It looks, er, charming.
Ricardo: Charm doesn’t fix a broken house. You move out and move on.
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Voice-over
Ricardo goes on to remark that Lafcadio Hearne understood places like this. The lingering ghosts, the superstitions... It is then that Edwin realizes it is the ghosts that are driving Ricardo out.

House Relocation

Two halves of a house arrive on site
Contractor: Any problems?
Owner: A few hiccups along the way. The narrow roads. The trucks barely fit down some streets. Then, there was a low bridge that we had to navigate around, which added a couple of hours.
Owner: Anything else?
Contractor: Hmm. Also an issue with one of the truck’s hydraulics. And then there was an unexpected roadworks that weren’t on our route plan, causing another delay.
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Voice-over
Getting there is only the start. Factor in positioning the house halves in soft ground, levelling, breakages, reinforcement, connecting utilities, exterior and interior finishing and the process of inspection and approval.

Old house, old car, old body

Objects vs humans…

Erik: In some ways, we humans are just objects, like houses or cars.

Olga: It’s a bit extreme.

Erik: Well houses get old, develop problems. Electrical appliances conk put, leaks appear, floors rot. After a series of these it becomes too expensive to fix them.

Olga: Yes, like cars. The electricals go, the suspension goes, the transmission. Scrap it.

Erik: So our bodies follow a similar pattern. The digestion slows and needs intervention, organs fail, cancer appears. 

Erik: Individuals sometimes call time themselves.

Olga: So you're saying scrap someone with too many health issues?

_________

Voice-over

A doctor might gently say to a patient, “Well, we aren’t getting any younger, are we.” Maybe soon an AI app will make the judgement on whether it’s worth intervening. But then, when multiple health issues co-occur, maybe we should remember someone like Henry Kissinger, who at 100 years old, who has difficulty walking, can still deliver sense on how China and the US need to responsibly deal with each other. A life of worth.