We Have Always Lived in the Castle

by Shirley Jackson

‘It’s terrible to be old, and just lie here wondering when it will happen.’

We were going to the long field which today looked like an ocean, although I had never seen an ocean;

“As a matter of fact,” he said, “come about a month from now, I wonder who will still be here? You,” he said, “or me?”

Time was running shorter, tightening around our house, crushing me.

Our house was a castle, turreted and open to the sky.

“I am thinking that we are on the moon, but it is not quite as I supposed it would be.”

“The least Charles could have done,” Constance said, considering seriously, “was shoot himself through the head in the driveway.”