The Castle of Otranto

What is a castle, but a vain attempt to keep at bay a horror, dark, adverse, that sniffs its way towards our flesh and bone? It seeps through portals, leering with contempt at battlements and barriers. The Curse can find us, where we sleep, alone. Rank weeds creep up, malodorous, unkempt: a moaning wind weaves through them, to disperse their evil seeds, unstoppable once sown. Our crude carnality can fool us, tempt a sense of something “out there”. This perverse conception causes castles. Walls are thrown around us. Though we toil on soil and stone, the menace is internal – and our own.