The old
house creaked and groaned. Agony was not a new feeling; the dwelling had lived
a long and hard life, full of pain and misery. But sadness was. It would never
feel the patter of human feet on its worn skin again. Never feel the ecstasy of
a crack or corner being repaired. The fire would see to that. Ashes to ashes.
Dust to dust. That was their lot in existence. The occupants had gone into the
city nearby. The only ones who would watch the house burn were the bodies that
were hung all around the house. They watched with undying eyes as floor after
floor crashed into one another with such speed that an outsider may believe
that they were racing. The never-rotting cadavers stared unblinkingly as a maw
opened up above them and spat out the contents of a child's room; markers
denoting gender now reduced to ash. The decrepit house buckled and wheezed,
down on its last knee. Some of the strings snapped, carcasses falling to the
floor. Others still hung as the flames ate away at them. The oldest lasted the
longest, watching with eyes that both stared at a single point and followed a
man across the room, as their relations were felled by the fire. The flames
crackled and spat as they raced towards the progenitors. The string snapped.
The frame broke. The glass cracked. The portrait burned. And the house fell,
finally burying them all.
Andrew J. Buring
