A picture speaks 55 words.
Houses hold many secrets.
How many do you hear whispered?
This is one tale the house kept and laboured.
In exactly 55 words, as always preferred:
What words did the House blow in your ears?
Every passer-by heard something new over the years.
Want to share what you heard – in all of 55-words?
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Just sold my house, the one shared with my husband and children, due to the nightmare of secrets and lies my husband wrote and direcrted and forced me to co-star in. Our marriage, represented by the house of horrors…glad to be freed from ownership of at least that.
“House of Horrors” – Arrrgh! If you were my daughter, there will be a blood price to be paid!
I wish with all my heart that Life throws you winners and your journey forward is strewn with love, happiness and fullfillment.
🙂 Eric 🙂
And yes, Eric, it was a thought! Jail, however, is quite the deterrent!
God must be a follower of yours. xoxo
Thanks for commenting on one of my blogs. I’m new to this so need imput. I will check in further when I finish this Marketing Blitz I’m on. Liked reading about the house! I’ve moved 35 times and so have a different take here. I’m tuned into life in different ways too!
I sure missed your comment. But found it after all these years.
Moved 35 times – that must be some record!
I like the tale you spun on the picture of the house. Houses have such history and stories to them. Thanks for sharing that.
Like a gecko on the wall, a house sees alot – but unlike a gecko, a house endures and witnesses much more.
Thank you for encouraging me with your visit.
Have a great week ahead,
Eric
She arrives broken, brittle, like the branches scraping on the window. He arrives harried, harrassed, harboring resentments. Together they find peace, security, relaxing into each other. Their smiles dance across my floors; their laughter and love sing through my vents. All too soon they go… but they will be back. They always return to me.
This is marvellous Carrie and opens up possibilities about who these people are and how they are related. Thank you for this contribution.
I notice that you don’t have a blog – or am I wrong?
Also, may I have your permission to include this in a forthcoming Flash-Fiction Gallery?
You can see a sample of what I intend here > http://wp.me/p1YE83-12e
Thank you for your contribution and reply,
Eric
Hi Eric –
I would be honored for you to use this little bit in the flash fiction gallery.
I have two blogs: mettapanda.wordpress.com and spiritualsongstress.wordpress.com. Neither receive consistent attention, but they give an idea for what I’m up to. 🙂 [You ‘liked’ a post on mettapanda, which allowed me to find you!]
-Carrie
Thank you Carrie.
Usually the blogsite shows under the commentator’s name but yours has only an email. But no worries, I located your “mettapanda” blog and ticked to receive your posts. Will visit more often 🙂
All good wishes,
Eric
Hi Eric, I’ve ben traveling but have now arrived and hope that it is not too late to offer a comment on the house. It looks like a place capable of being a wonderful home with history hidden in its walls. Somehow I hope that it is not as sad as your 55 words (which make an evocative tale). I tired to make my 55 more hopeful as I think that this beautiful old building deserves to house happinesss.
The empty house cried “Let me be your home, live in me. I promise protective love”.
At each rejection plants offered comfort while her sad windows sank behind sagging thatched eaves and her wattle walls moaned desperate in dampness.
Then, the family arrived to brave her creaks and mask her antiquity with laughter and joy.
This is stupendous, Jane 🙂
Yes, I tend to write more about the darker and heavier aspects of life and actually need a better balance. Love reads that are full of hope and happiness – and you’ve done well with this 🙂
It is interesting – the house promised protective love and received laughter and joy in return – a micro-system of cyclic love.
Luv and hugz,
Eric
I have lived in many houses…the stories they could whisper are boundless!
I am sure Wolfie, that after you vacated, the houses have more to say – and mostly about love and care for God’s creatures. I cannot imagine anything but positive vibrations in your wake.
Have a great weekend dear,
Eric 🙂
I wonder if the secrets in the house know that the word limit is 55? That’s even shorter than a tweet on Twitter! 🙂
LOL! I suppose this is one way to ensure the house sticks to the bare essentials (pun unintended) and not embellish it à la the village gossip 🙂
P/s And we all thought to tweet is to keep it short 🙂
My childhood home was originally the first school house in Bloom Township. My great grandparents had bought the house after the new school was built.
As a child I would frequently sense the presence of many children, but there was one in particular who would show herself to me. She was around 8 or 9 years of age, the attire she was wearing was that of the late 1800’s – early 1900’s. I asked her name and she said “I am called Mellie.” During the time many children died from measles, mumps, smallpox, chickenpox, diphtheria, whooping cough, scarlet fever, and more. Mellie died from scarlet fever.
I also sensed another presence which I discovered was my great Aunt Clara who died as an infant. My Great Grandmother Ora loved that house and you could feel her love present for years after her passing. My childhood was filled with pleasant memories only because of the time I shared with my paternal grandparents and great grandmother.
My mother was extremely mentally ill, so in the care of my parents me and my 7 siblings experienced nothing but cruelty.
Yes, houses do talk.
Some people in the community would comment that after great grandma died and my parents moved in with us — they would sense sadness where there once was joy. It had become a house of pain.
Despite this myself and a few of my other siblings rose above our childhood environment and all is well.
Thank you very much for this sharing. I read it a couple of times to soak in all you’ve said and had to pause to reflect.
Old houses do retain old memories that mirror the peaks and troughs of peoples lives. I am familiar with this and indeed had incorporated it in one of my (forthcoming) Fallen Grace episodes. Therefore, I will not pre empt that by letting on too much here. All the more as this is your story and lets stay with you. It is encouraging to read real-life sharing such as yours. Thank you once again.
The people who read my blog are a wonderful and supportive group – and I am sure they would appreciate your story and perhaps some can also relate to it.
I uploaded this post as a bit of a smarty pants swipe at clandestine trysts and instead, stand humbled by your recollection. A cocktail of emotions is swimming within but all leaning to the positives and love.
It is comforting to know that love and perseverance can overcome negative “vibrations”. Obviously, you and your siblings accomplished much and have every reason to be quietly proud of yourselves.
All peace and good wishes go with you,
Eric
P/s I could not access your WP blog – it says “non existent” – perhaps it has to do with your “Setting” or some other glitch. Peace.
Sharing thoughts for future house in Singapore :
Built to order,
With constant increase in price.
Not a standalone, but one pigeonhole among the clutter.
A habitat that you may owe the bank for a lifetime of work.
Will this be a joyous family expansion, or just another investment or a place to sleep with absolute no attachment.
It is as real, but wrote it just for laughs. Have a lovely weekend.
OMG Jasey,
You came in with 50 words! Now that makes it easier to beef it to 55. (Going the other way is usually more challenging).
That is a nice slant to the local Singapore housing scene. Marvellous 🙂
You have a lovely weekend too,
Eric 🙂
Eric, what a thought provoking piece and I too believe that a house absorbs the energy of those within.
My new house said ‘Welcome’ as soon as I walked into it and it has a calm and creative energy. I was grateful to meet the departing tenant and he carves wood and weaves baskets. I bought some of his pieces so his ‘peace’ stays within my new home. I also believe that sensitive souls ‘feel’ their path and have visions of what is to be.
Big hugs my lovely buddy, J xxx
Ah Jane dear,
Not only human friends embrace you, I see.
You are very right – some places are warm and inviting, while others are cold and provoke anxiety. Some believe, cats and dogs and young children latch onto the “vibes” of a place easily. It pays to observe how relaxed they are when they first enter a new place.
Luv and hugz back to you buddy,
Eric 🙂
He lost his love and paid for his lust at a price of experience and sunny days outside the crooked windows. He saw the road he travelled and surely that was all worth it..
That is a positive take, Chatty Owl 🙂
I agree that no life experience is wasted.
I wrote a poem on that once..lol
I’m not surprised that you did – perhaps, if you had not already, you could post the poem on your blog.
I do recall you wrote a flash fiction about a man and his ill-gotten gains, and how he ended up building a gilded cage for himself.
Yes, a house does indeed hold many secrets. Houses have seen a lot and can probably tell so many tales if they have the capacity to do so..
And what stories, if they could only tell – probably runs the gamut of human emotions and relations – and all remain a secret within their walls.
That’s a sad story from a pretty house. (Hmmm…this wasn’t an American politician, was it? :))
Yes, Janna – from the house’s POV.
See also my comment above in response to Ian’s.
Re: Politicians > the same mould everywhere, including Singapore. Recently, another politician – the House Speaker no less, resigned in disgrace over his “discreet house” that was not so discreet.
Poor house 🙁
You are a thinker. I’m privileged to have come across you in my internet wanderings.
As usual something to make us think. What words did the house blow in my ear? “I feel all alone!”
Ian – your response actually triggered this 55-word whisper:
Strangers sneak in, make out
Ignoring my presence
Outraging my modesty
They leave behind their shame
Draw vile rodents
Which squeak and fight
As they devour the filth
A social hazard
A fire hazard
A danger, to be torn down
All this my fault?
When all I wanted
Was to shelter
My master and mistress
I drank too much tea – brain in overdrive, me thinks 🙂
This house topic leads me to share a rather strange story, considering I am quite non-religious, do not believe in superstitions, do not bother about dreams, etc.
For years, several times a year a recurring dream entered my sleep. In this dream, I inhabited a very different sort of house, not exactly a labyrinth, but with rooms angling along a cliff of sorts with slightly different levels.
After I moved into the house where I live now on the edge of a cliff whose outer walls (and inner also) follow the angles of the cliff from which they overhang, these dreams ceased.
Hello Juliana,
This is wonderful sharing – it enthrals me to read of such experiences as it lends credence to what I write in my Fallen Grace episodes.
Some believe that an intensively sensitive person – one in touch with their conscious Self – can actually recall what they plan/or is planned for them when they travel to the Beyond (in their sleep). The knowledge gathered dislodges when they re-enter their physical body, leaving breadcrumbs of dreams (or even nightmares – if the experiences are nasty).
I like to think this is what you experienced. And once it materialized, the dreams stopped.
Peace,
Eric
P/s I saw pictures of your house you mention – snowed under. Keep safe.