Chamber Pit

Upon the top of a grand hill was some decaying mass of bricks only to be glowering in the devilish light of something sinister. It wasn't so much as decaying per se, just extremely unkempt. Ivy crawled up the bricks, breaking through the glass with the said branches spiraling up the bars affixed to both the inside and outside of the panes. It's such a humane thing-- the complexity of nature retaking this broken land. In fact, grass had begun to grow along the steep banks of the trench surrounding the estate. Even the guard towers looked less daunting with bricks that composed these twenty foot tall structures beginning to chip away and fall the ground. Rust encased the wrought iron gate. Pine saplings were sprouting randomly among the lofty oak trees with the calm threads of Spanish moss sashaying in the summer's breeze. Strangely, or not so strangely at all in hindsight, the dawn of June 20th reeked of blood-- stale blood.

A decimating cobblestone path winded its way up to the ajar main entrance of the building. The letters had long since fallen off of the front door, but the grime that covered the off-white paint had allowed for the name of the construction to be permanently imprinted onto the elaborate, Victorian trim.

And above all of this, the tall grasses of the lawn most likely slithered with snakes. I remember turning to him and we shared that moment of shared intuition. A pair of cutoff khakis that happened to make my legs look not-so-pale and ballet flats were not going to suffice for this excursion. His cargo shorts and black converse with the hole in the general area of his pinky toe were not going to withhold well either.

Maybe tomorrow we’d venture into the depths of St. Helena’s. Something about the decaying home of lunacy sent telltale pinpricks racing down the crooks of my back. As we walk away, turning our backs to the building, I turn back, taking one last survey...

It felt so empty, but not nearly as empty as it should’ve felt.