HOME | DD

Description
This is where I came from.

A broken door hangs on rusted hinges, barely screwed into the frame. Glass from shattered windows is scattered about the warped wood porch, reflecting subtle splinters of light into my eyes. The branches of the old oak tree next to it reaches out towards the house, as if trying to reclaim the wood that barely holds the place together anymore.

I look past it now as I slowly step inside, careful not to finally break the door free of the frame. Dust rises as soon as my feet touch the floor; even my breathing stirs it to life. The air is stagnant, the breath of days gone by untouched and unchanged. A place stuck in time. Pale sheets cloak the furniture and pictures on the walls and fireplace have browned with the passing seasons, seeming more than a century old and forgotten.

But it wasn't so long ago. Time had a way of aging the past far more quickly than the present. It was the only reason that a few years past seemed like an entire lifetime.

I couldn't bring myself to look more closely at the pictures, couldn't bring myself to unveil the furniture. If I did, it would be like awaking the ghost that's slumbered undisturbed for so long and was now hungry to find the life it had lost. The house had lost its life a long time ago, and I wasn't willing to revive it.

I leave the front parlor and head for the staircase in the back by the kitchen. The hall is musky and damp, cold. Once upon a time, siblings chased each other up and down these stairs, filling it with the echo of joyous, carefree laughter. It used to fill with the smell of sweets baked in the kitchen, beckoning those to come down and see what lay on the table.

My hand grabs the rail at the top shakily. There were too many memories awakening to greet me in this house. Each was an unwelcomed reminder of what happened to change this home into Hell.

Having had enough, I go to the first bedroom in the right side of the hall and kneel down beside the broken bed. My fingers pry at the loose floor board, where tucked beneath lies a small black box and a small piece of folded paper. Unfolding it, I read the heartbreakingly familiar writing as I painfully reach for the box.

This is where we come from.

Indeed, once upon a time, in what feels like another life, we had.

However, we has become I, I think with a bitter laugh, tucking the box into my pocket. And I never wish to return.

Description
This is where I came from.

A broken door hangs on rusted hinges, barely screwed into the frame. Glass from shattered windows is scattered about the warped wood porch, reflecting subtle splinters of light into my eyes. The branches of the old oak tree next to it reaches out towards the house, as if trying to reclaim the wood that barely holds the place together anymore.

I look past it now as I slowly step inside, careful not to finally break the door free of the frame. Dust rises as soon as my feet touch the floor; even my breathing stirs it to life. The air is stagnant, the breath of days gone by untouched and unchanged. A place stuck in time. Pale sheets cloak the furniture and pictures on the walls and fireplace have browned with the passing seasons, seeming more than a century old and forgotten.

But it wasn't so long ago. Time had a way of aging the past far more quickly than the present. It was the only reason that a few years past seemed like an entire lifetime.

I couldn't bring myself to look more closely at the pictures, couldn't bring myself to unveil the furniture. If I did, it would be like awaking the ghost that's slumbered undisturbed for so long and was now hungry to find the life it had lost. The house had lost its life a long time ago, and I wasn't willing to revive it.

I leave the front parlor and head for the staircase in the back by the kitchen. The hall is musky and damp, cold. Once upon a time, siblings chased each other up and down these stairs, filling it with the echo of joyous, carefree laughter. It used to fill with the smell of sweets baked in the kitchen, beckoning those to come down and see what lay on the table.

My hand grabs the rail at the top shakily. There were too many memories awakening to greet me in this house. Each was an unwelcomed reminder of what happened to change this home into Hell.

Having had enough, I go to the first bedroom in the right side of the hall and kneel down beside the broken bed. My fingers pry at the loose floor board, where tucked beneath lies a small black box and a small piece of folded paper. Unfolding it, I read the heartbreakingly familiar writing as I painfully reach for the box.

This is where we come from.

Indeed, once upon a time, in what feels like another life, we had.

However, we has become I, I think with a bitter laugh, tucking the box into my pocket. And I never wish to return.