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The Missouri Review

Fiction | December 10, 2012

Swarm

Lauren Acampora

The new house was a horror. Martin and his wife remarked on it each time they turned onto Minuteman Road and were struck by the bald ostentation. The house, constructed in just three months, appeared to have been modeled after a Palladian villa. It was fronted by a columned entry with a pediment like a dunce cap, and its symmetrical wings were shot through with fussy, arched windows. Although the structure was set back from the road, the owners had perversely removed the trees at the property’s front edge and installed a squat stone wall flecked with mica. Neither of them were typically prone to prejudgment, but Martin and Philomena considered themselves people of modest leanings and allowed themselves the small, wicked gratification of condemning the owners’ taste.

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