The House Of Life (A Mid Week Escape Story)

The soft splash of dripping water like a heartbeat in the old house. The lower boarded windows let through slips of dust filled sunlight. The air heavy with the weight of years past.

No one lives here now. She crossed the forgotten threshold.

The hall, awash with leaves and debris, cracked and peeled in on itself. A single leaf twisted and skimmed out the open doorway, vanishing in the overgrown garden. The stairs crept up, soft and damp, each step its own mossy woodland clearing. A broken window beamed across the hall, it’s shattered panes long given way to the flit and twist of little birds. The doors cling on, gripping the frame with the last of their leaning strength.

The kitchen, what was the kitchen, has let the outside in. Vines curl around broken glass, slipping inside. The faded wallpaper, saggy and swollen, basks in the glory of what was. The pattern of woodmen and forest, once bright and beloved, bleeds, faded and swollen into the creep of leaves and shoots. A thatched swallows nest clings in the corner, its occupants long flown, awaiting the coming of spring and purpose renewed. Across the floor, worn into the dust of years, twists little paths, intersecting well worn scavenging routes, strewn here and there with discarded husk and shell. Above, the ceiling bows, the boarding draped between the beams.

A door, giving way to rot and wilt, sags an opening, inviting her into the gloomy world within. The soft fabric of the seating set, living replicas in moss and fungus. The musty curtains veiled in silvery mould, cling on to a study pole clutching the wall by screw threads. Hanging heavy with the damp of neglect, mildew has melded rotten velour to yellowed wallpaper. The windows, barred with thick twisting branches, cracking the glass with their swell, choking the sunlight. The stifled glow casts permeates the dull gloom, a miasma heavy with spores and shifting dust.

Above, a floor invaded, but not claimed, called to her.

The staircase of careful steps, the boards long rotted, the membrane of carpet thick with verdant growth. Grasses dotted with budding flowers, entwined with thick mosses and waterfalls of fern. Twisting ivy climbing through the window, yielded shy of the honeysuckled handrail. Blossomed at the first hint of warmer sun, the heavenly blooms emanate a heady fragrance, mingling with the fresh earth scent of moss and fern.

The bare floors above catch drifts of dried leaves, breezed in through the broken windows. Stirring as if to rise with each passing breath of air.

Bereft of the signs life left below, a single metal bed frame rusting in the master bedroom is all that remains. The floorboards a sunset of decay in orange and brown, as the old wood rots and flakes, falling into the void beneath. Rusty stained sinkholes mark the floor with lines of the beams below. The nails crumbled into the flamed flakes show her safe passage over the failing floor.

The paint grips the walls in a tiedye of peeling patches. Broken chips, edged in rainbows of fashions forgot. The pocked plaster beneath stained in great faded storm soaked slicks. The crumbling holes contoured with watermarks maps of worlds unknown.

The pitted roof casts clear cut shafts of sunlight, illuminating familiar patches of bleached boards. Pollock patterns of seeded bird droppings grow in well worn routes, from broken windows to carefully constructed nests. The foundations of a forest laid on the remains of what once was. Soon, tentative roots will nestle between flaking floorboards. Pale, wary shoots will creep out of the nurturing cracked crust. Leaves will spread and rise, chasing sunlit shafts. The fluttering, scuttering host of insects will be joined by nesting birds, mice will discover this seeded feast, and make their home in the gaps and cracks. Bees will hurry between blossom and bloom, legs caked in yellow pollen as the symphony of spring echoes through the walls.

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She picked her way back down the staircase, a firm grip on the handrail, ornate with blossom.

Crossing the threshold once more was like leaving a blissful dream, cushioned with the intoxicating scent of springs early flowers, washed in green of creeping life.

The garden, a tangle of bramble, nettle and elderflower snagged at her, caught her with every step. A waist high barrier of thorn and thistle that would break out in bloom and berry come the golden tinges of autumn.

She climbed over jaunty gate, lurching on its contorted hinges, understand what they had meant about the forest cottage that came with her house.

No one could live in the house of life.

I hope you enjoyed the journey around an overgrown cottage in the woods. Sadly I couldn't find the perfect picture, so went with one that captured a hint of the right essence, hopefully the image I had came through. This started as a description of a house, I just enjoyed writing it, but as it went on, it became an experience I wanted to be able to share.

Photo Credit by Pixabay User dimitrisvetsikas1969 who has over ten thousand photos in the public domain!

Thank you very much for stopping by <3

Love and Sparkle - Calluna