The Haunting

I walked through the haunted house on the hill, through the untended garden first, a tangle of foxgloves and weeds, claws of bracken the hands of the dead. Trees, stripped bare branches scratching bulging underbelly of the sky as if to tear it open and fling it's innards onto the earth. Truly, there was no path. Past stone lion sentinels, through the faintly screaming door, where inside I discovered nothing but a shell, ornate paper and yellow-boned plaster peeling and flaking from walls and ceilings. Ancient cobwebs clung to my hair, their creators long since desiccated and dust. I swept them away like yesteryear's dead leaves. The musk of dark embalmed memories dry-charged my nostrils 'till they flared. In the gloom, water dripped steadily onto tin - tip! tip! tip! tip! -- a faded, thready heartbeat. Memories tried to softly sink barbed claws into my brain, to make me hear and see things better left underground. With no little effort I shut them out, knowing full well that given chance of purchase, of insidious anchorage, they may never leave. Nor would I, for given time all houses acquire ghosts and strive to add to their collection, amplifying the thudding, weeping and dread longing that flutters and swans beneath their crumbling rooftops. I may belong here but I cannot stay, for all those who walk here must, in truth, walk alone.