Secrets of Revenants and Taurusa School

Wrapped in the aromatic blossoms of a modern-farmed orange orchard, a four-room shack in Visalia, California rises above the hard pan and overgrown rose bushes. The once palatial bell tower of Taurusa School, peaks over the sun painted, fruit lavished branches. It once christened the ceiling-less, blue vault and ochre-hued grass cutting a swath through a barren plain. The winds whistle ghostly rounds of "Brother John" through cracks in the walls and rattles brittle cackles of childhood titters as it wafts along the peeling tar paper swirling the thick musk of decay. Light filters through ripples of dusted, liquid glass sagging in splintered panes to blaze across the pinewood floor and spill between rotting slats. Found in postcards buried in antique shops, local revenants share tales of sitting numb-legged in straight-backed, wooden chairs winking plans of escape at the noontime ringing of the school bell. "We hike to the train tracks with lunch sacks in hand. Brother James bribes a soot stained hobo warming cold hands over a fire pit. He passes off his buttered bread sandwich into clubbed, stumped, frostbit fingers for the lecherous scoop of nearby towns. Papa will only whisper such news to mama upon his pillow when the lamp flames fade to a thin coil of smoke to breeze on the night air into our sleeping loft."