Sample Sunday: There was a Hole Here. It's Gone Now
I came to the house each time before as in a dream. These were not dreams of trepidation and nightmare rather the atmosphere was one of a strange serenity – the hills and trees were underlit by the tones of a long-lost twilight and there was no sound as such but an almost audible sense of sighing, of life, time and space coming to rest, finding some peace at last. It was through this scene of umbrous groves buried deep in sepulchral countryside that I came to the house time and again. It stood tall though it was not tall in stature, lengthening shadows lending it grandeur whilst the deepening darkness of approaching night coloured its secluded spaces in austere colours and shades.
Coming to the fringes of the porch's shadow, fluttering as the wings of a black blossom butterfly might, I came to a moment of pause. One that held me still as I took in the high windows of the house, the sloping gables of the roof and disintegrating matter caking the outer walls – was it plaster, mould, loam? Or, some less pleasant possibility that could crumble, flake and discolour so?
I did not know and dare not guess as certain shadows moved in around me, brushing by with whispering lips and briar patch fingertips. The house was now revealed to me as a place of disquiet, seemingly unearthed from its slumber. Yes, as the last light left the world around me, I came to understand this dwelling place was much like a vault or a tomb but made and decorated in manner as to be a habitable home.
What manner of man could conceive of such a thing?
On this thought, the dream would each time end, leaving me standing there, indecisive, upon the threshold of the haunted darkness cast by the house's porch.
The time that I truly came to the house was after many years of living and many more of dreaming. Alone, I hiked through the hills of a country I had called home for some years, having grown into a nomad during the latter half of my life. It was a late hour and I knew, in this part of the world, the days and nights behaved strangely. The light was wont to shift and change with mercurial and sudden abandon. In doing so, it made me lose my way and I found myself wandering through groves familiar and yet foreboding, listening, hearing nothing, but slowly realising that I was feeling that all-consuming sigh exuding from all things around me.
Out of the groves I came and there was the house and I will not bore you with the repeated details of my approach to the property. The one and crucial detail that changed this time, that caused me not only to flee the vicinity but also that country I had called home for some years, was this. I crossed into the porch's shadow and went up to the door.
The door was a stout object and not remotely affected by the queer decay tainting the rest of the house's exterior. I meant to go up and rap upon it with the cast-iron knocker set at the same height as my sternum, meaning to speak to the owner whom I was sure had been sending me these dreams over the years. What was his reason? Why this long, drawn-out summoning that had robbed me of so many precious hours sleep due to fear and contemplation?
I never did rap upon that door.
For, as I approached it, hand raised in readiness, it opened before me.
Not much, a mere crack, enough to see in and see no light within. The only illumination was cast by the steadily retreating glow of evening and, in that glow, I saw his face. It was long and drawn and the eyes and mouth and nose were holes. For immeasurable moments, I was held mesmerised by the hopelessly black and gaping orbits in his pale, washed-out face. In that narrow space, with the door and jamb framing it, I noticed the face becoming somehow disturbed, rippling as if touched by a light breeze, the edges of it, they were peeling, coming undone, coming loose.
It was then that he spoke to me and his voice was a terrible thing to hear.
So it was at that moment, with the mask of his ancient skin slithering to earth before my eyes, baring what waited beneath to the light, that I turned away and fled. Away from the house, back through the groves and down to the road. Leaving the hills, the secrets they guarded and the nightmares left unburied there far behind me.
And now, all these years later, I write these words down within my house. A house I have not left in such a very long time. I saw what was beneath the mask of skin that day and it made me see, it made me understand so well the world and time and everything that passes ephemeral into nothingness. Through the dreams and down through the years, he had led me to the threshold of his dwelling, moulding me, shaping the course of my life for the simple matter of our meeting so as to look upon me and know my face. One that would not come loose when touched in the slightest way by the open air and to then pass something onto me, something he no longer could hope to bear.
And so now, I sleep here in my house and I dream and in those dreams I travel as my body once travelled. I barely stir from my bed for months on end, maybe even years have passed, as I wander with ease through the dreams and the nightmares of others. Some see me walking abroad in their most private thoughts, some do not. Others, curious nomads as I once was, they approach me, reaching out, they come forth, braving the whispering shadows closing in on us all. They come to the threshold of my house, hands raised in readiness to rap upon the door and thus awaken me.
One day, I think, I will open the door, and I will speak, and my voice will be a terrible thing to hear.
END
© G.R. Yeates 2011
The Eyes of the Dead is available now:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
Amazon Germany
Smashwords
Nook
Shapes in the Mist is available now:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
Amazon Germany
Smashwords
Nook
Tweet
