The Weathered House

The wind howls around the old house, tearing at the faded ivy and whistling through the shuttered panes. Water drips an endless melody on the cold unyielding floor. Everything is dark and empty, oppressive, suffocating and morose. But now and again, if you listen, you can hear the distant echoes and glimpse shadows in the fading light. Age and neglect have made of this place a mockery of what it once had been. So now nothing just the flicker of an elusive memory, tugging at my senses and teasing my mind’s eye. At the edge of hearing there is wild music, or is it just the wind? Then a furtive laugh, a whispered remark, a child's lonesome cry drift around me. Impossible! What can they be? Only phantom noises from long, long ago. But memories live yet, deep in this ancient abode. Soaked into and sealed in the warped stairwell, the cold and empty fireplace, the gathered dust and debris of a hundred empty, silent years. I stand still! Rigid! My head strangely tilted and for a second I understand. I know whose that strange unsettling laugh and see the coldness of those passionless eyes and bow my head in pain and horror of that pitiful, desolate cry. 16 November, 1997