She says the empty house is like a cemetery now, full of strange sounds and creeping shadows. A house without people is like a morgue, only the dead remain. All that lingers are floorboards and stone, cold stone without warm feet to weather away at their molecules.
She said her heart was full and happy in that home, she said she designed it, built it with her mind and planted memories there. I say a home without a family is not a home but a lonely structure waiting. If someone new comes to fill it then it will be a home again, but right now it is a barren womb, a lifeless heap of wood and stone. Right now it is a castaway ship, a death ship sailing on endless winds, searching for companionship.
She says that’s dramatic.
I say it’s a hollowed-out tree with no critters living inside because no one wants to live in the house where all the happy people left. Maybe the house was so happy that once we left it fell to misery and now anyone who comes to visit can sense the home’s unease.
No one wants to live in a once happy house. It’s like staying at a once nice hotel that fell into disrepair. It’s like almost being in love. No one wants to almost be in love. No one wants to almost be happy. Same here, no one wants the house that grieves for its previous inhabitants. It’s like a bad odor, like death came and took over.
Apparently, a house can be in a bad mood, and my home is melancholy.
© Sarah E. Sturgis
