The Wreck
‘What a wreck!’, I hear people claim as they stroll by . Some come inside, slowly pushing open my doors for fear they may break. These humans, who stand in the middle of me, stare in disgust my crumbling walls; then they leave. I come alive when someone comes inside but they see me for what I have become, a shell; then they are gone and I am unused, derelict, I sag. Sometimes my roof tiles fall silently to the ground, smashing as they land, now I am scared that soon I will be bald
‘If walls could talk’, the truth is no one would listen, if cold stones suddenly formed a mouth; no one would stay. I’m talking now, in a way, but it’s not sound, it’s thought.
I’m old: my paint work flakes like dandruff and I am green from moss. Walls crumble: like decayed bone. Once I was magnificent: shining, stately. Suddenly the world progressed and I was almost forgotten, ‘a quaint old mansion but now I’m a place where people come to do the unmentionable things such as ‘murder’ and to kill of the family pets.
Blood stains my cold, grey floors. Damp turns my once whit walls a murky yellow like uncleaned teeth. Once I heard a group of hard-hatted adults complain about how decrepit I was, but they can’t do anything about it. Now every Friday young adults come rolling over the hills that surround me and drink a vile substance from tin cans, which later rest, rusting in my flower beds.
I remember a time when I was dressed with scarlet roses, my soil was dark and rich, when I was lost in a maze of luxurious green hills. Now I am dressed with damp and decay and I am lost in a nightmare but my soil is still rich and dark; if only I could reach out and sift through it with my hands, but I have no arms and no hands: I am only bricks and mortar.
At midnight on Sundays, the clock strikes six times which leaves my shell-like form in silence. At which the ghosts appear and a fiddle strikes up, it’s ancient melody bound through my walls which turn a bright, glowing white and ghostly dances begin.
The roses rise from my soil and grow to heights no man has seen. The ornate wooden decorations begin to gleam and are restored to glory. When the time has passed the ghostly dancers fade out my doors and the roses wither and die; the glow fades from my walls and bricks begin to crumble. The clock strokes its’ last six dooming bells and darkness falls upon my windows.
The soil shines like the stars in the stars in the sky and I know as long as they do I will have my midnight hour.
