A House Haunted

It stood there looking empty and old, neglected and sad with windows shuttered, covered in shadow both day and night, hovered over by trees whose branches disguised the house and made it seem a part of the overgrown landscape, completely surrounding it, keeping strangers and unawares at bay. It stood there shrinking from the present almost lifeless, a house with no soul no face, no breath, as if it started out as a ruin and was determined to remain so for all time, unwanted, unkempt, shunned by passersby, its roof looking tortured its doors uncertain as to whether they opened at all and no one knew and no one asked. It stood there talking to itself in a silent conversation that no one heard, talking about things that used to be as though the Past was in the Now and the Now belonged to the Past, and who would dare to knock on its doors or tap on its windows to see if anyone would answer or show their presence to the world outside, a world gone by. I stood there on many a night along the side of the road just endlessly peering at this lonely old place wondering, waiting for a light inside to be turned on at the same appointed time emanating from behind heavy and yellowed lace curtains that looked like tattered spider webs in only one crooked window and one window only hung with spidery lace. I stood there on those moonlit nights bewitched by this house listening to calls and breaths of wild things that roamed all around me under ink-black star-filled skies, but no light from moon nor star could illumine this clapboard-covered curio from another day and age concealed by branches, vines and bramble, bushes and nettles and mystery. I stood there wondering who turned on that only light, who roamed the house by night who walked its tilted floors who locked its uncertain doors who hung the curtains of lace who built this unsettling place who called this abode their home and how many hallways would they roam and are there secrets that lived inside and what was the bramble trying to hide, was there anything for it to reveal anything for it to tell this house haunted that knew me so well? copyright © 2019 Gregory Firlotte