I am trying to figure out what I mean when I say things like "This house is haunted as fuuuuuuuuck.". Which I have been doing every night, at this beautiful house with giant windows overlooking a gentle canyon. It doesn't feel like your typical haunted house. Whatever your typical haunted house feels like. Instead, it feels like the house I grew up in. It feels like there is a cocktail party going on one dimension over, and the socially awkward one of the bunch is sitting on the porch that happens to face your kitchen window, and they are watching you with a detached, happy sort of interest. It feels like the masks that cover these walls have spent so much time together that they've formed a Stitch and Bitch club, and you're the newcomer who brought banana bread that everybody else makes better. They're probably not whispering about you, but they are definitely whispering.
Some houses are just haunted. Maybe not by ghosts, not by sad or angry remnants of humans gone by. They're haunted by personality, by a sense of containing more than rooms and furniture and air. I both love and hate houses like this. I love them when I am awake, day or night. I love walking around getting to casually acknowledge whatever it is that is watching me with detached interest. I love tiptoeing through them at night, feeling brave for not being terrified, enjoying the ability to look in the shadows and know that yes, there is something there, and no, it's not scary.
I hate them when I am sleeping. Because my dreams have always been portals, and when you're in a house haunted by personality, dreams are apparently a favorite place to fuck with you. I can't tell you how many times over the past couple of nights that I have been woken up from a deep sleep by the sound of a heavy clap, or the distinct feeling of the bed being jerked to the side. I'll wake up and the dogs will have been woken up as well, will be sighing and staring at that corner of the room that makes your instincts shiver and your hackles rise. It doesn't matter that the clap or the jostle are probably physical reactions to my dreams, are just synapses firing in quirky ways. It's still impossible to get back to sleep till the light is on and and the dogs settle down along with your adrenaline and you've distracted yourself with a good book. All of which takes far too long.
I'm sitting in a slowly darkening living room, enjoying the fact that there are no lights on in the house and the silhouette of the replica Tericotta Army soldier is lightly highlighted in soft grey and seems to be moving. It's not the darkness that matters in these haunted as fuuuuuuuuuuck houses, it's the opportunity to whisper when your brain isn't already occupied.
Some houses are just haunted. Maybe not by ghosts, not by sad or angry remnants of humans gone by. They're haunted by personality, by a sense of containing more than rooms and furniture and air. I both love and hate houses like this. I love them when I am awake, day or night. I love walking around getting to casually acknowledge whatever it is that is watching me with detached interest. I love tiptoeing through them at night, feeling brave for not being terrified, enjoying the ability to look in the shadows and know that yes, there is something there, and no, it's not scary.
I hate them when I am sleeping. Because my dreams have always been portals, and when you're in a house haunted by personality, dreams are apparently a favorite place to fuck with you. I can't tell you how many times over the past couple of nights that I have been woken up from a deep sleep by the sound of a heavy clap, or the distinct feeling of the bed being jerked to the side. I'll wake up and the dogs will have been woken up as well, will be sighing and staring at that corner of the room that makes your instincts shiver and your hackles rise. It doesn't matter that the clap or the jostle are probably physical reactions to my dreams, are just synapses firing in quirky ways. It's still impossible to get back to sleep till the light is on and and the dogs settle down along with your adrenaline and you've distracted yourself with a good book. All of which takes far too long.
I'm sitting in a slowly darkening living room, enjoying the fact that there are no lights on in the house and the silhouette of the replica Tericotta Army soldier is lightly highlighted in soft grey and seems to be moving. It's not the darkness that matters in these haunted as fuuuuuuuuuuck houses, it's the opportunity to whisper when your brain isn't already occupied.
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