A HOUSE OF DREAMS

You don't have to look back for the past to catch up with you

The past is done.All the old memories of my life are buried in separate graves.The home of my youth stands before me and the memories rise from the dead to haunt me again.Familiar voices echo from deep within the house. Father mother brother and sister...myself. As I child I wished for this house to burn down including the family that lived inside.We were poison among ourselves and as i feared we became poison to other people in our lives. So why am I here? Back to this place.After years away, I break my latest promise and come back to the beginning of a wasteful life. Years of uncut grass and wild weeds cover the blood trails throughout the yard.The front porch is no longer walkable due to rotting wooden boards.A screen door hangs off the hinges.All the windows are shattered or busted through.The siding is decayed.The roof is in shambles. From a normal point of view this house is decomposing from the outside slowly eroding into the rooms inside.But I was one of the survivors of this place.The early destruction of this house came within from the family it sheltered and worked its way outward. A abusive father.A submissive mother.A brother and sister who tried to protect their baby brother from harm's way but failed.We all hurt each other in one way or another and this house kept records of it all.Our parents lost their lives teaching us lessons that would change the fate of our family history. For my father, one more for the road actually meant two or three more.He died still a young man driving off a bridge into the river.My mother's lesson for us? When life gets too hard, go out on your own terms.She commited suicide with my father's gun down by the lake not too far from home.She cooked a final meal for us and left it on top of the oven.A note was left on the kitchen table."Everyday i hear your daddy call my name.so I'm leaving this world and we will burn in hell together.Take care of each other and stay in God's grace always." MAMA...We didn't. After my mother's death, we each lived with separate family members in separate homes.Over the years we tried as best we could to keep in touch with each other but eventually we just didnt care to try anymore.I haven't seen my brother in years and I don't feel a need to look for him.My sister is still looking for love even after two divorces and countless boyfriends. .All with similarities to my father..For myself I acknowledge that I am a lost soul.I am not a good man.I will take advantage of you and manipulate you when i feel it's necessary to do so.I do not believe I will live to be an old man but I am older than my father ever was.Despite breaking my promise to come back here I was compelled to return one last time. For what reason i can't even explain to myself.From what I understand other families have lived here over periods of time.Now it stands alone in its dying years neglected and abandoned. This was a house of dreams.Every person who stayed here dreamed of a better life living somewhere else other than this house.Someday soon the last remnants of what's standing will eventually tumble to the ground. Its remains will turn into ash and disappear into the wind.It will also take away the memories of myself and my family and it will be as if we never even existed at all.

Author's Note

A work of fiction based on a actual house of from my childhood now long gone.

Reviews

[Great Aunt Astri]

A work of fiction? It actually brought tears to my eyes, MAMA,,, oh how I felt the anguish there! Symbolically, it is probably a good thing that the old house is falling apart .. being taken back to Nature. It is quite cathartic. I think we all need to discard the old soul destroying things that we have been subjected to .. just let them decay into oblivion, so that their demise will bring better things to our lives. I think you have told the story really well. With the detail and emotion, it seemed like a very true story!

[Kristina Moulaison]

A very sad story, but one that speaks of the "houses" that make us who we are, and how they remain a part of us forever. Because of that, the lines that speak of not meaning to come back, and that others have lived here, hold deeper meanings, which is great! This is deeply felt...I think we can all relate to these places in our childhood that we return to again and again, even as we try to move away; of how deeply our stories follow us - become the places we live in. Thanks so much for sharing this!

[DarkArtz 0703]

oh my gosh... makes me want to cry for some reason... neat piece KC.

[Sabrinity]

wow is all i can say. I really like this one

[GwenLark]

This was unbelievable... it was so good. I felt I lived the characters whole life him in so few words. Some excellent word usage and turns of phrase. I can't wait to read more.

[Bacchus]

glad it's fiction... reads like it's not
needs to be broken up, especially since it's so heavy
could develop into a short story.
the we didn't line was strong.
it'd be cool if you found something that survived the house.. a memory of green to cling to...

[Julie McCarthy (juliesp..]

This is probably the best story. I've read on this site very heart wrenching love it

[Isabella Disney]

Mind Blowingly Awesome! You have a great narrators voice of your own shining through..

A very touching write :)

[Norma M Sutton]

Reading this as a reality I suspect we all go back the the house of our childhood at some point, and for the good or the bad, it is never the same. I moved back to the family farm and live walking distance from the house I grew up in. It too is not the same. I remember a great uncle telling me once, about the time I left for college, that home would never be the same. I find now, some 30 odd years later, that he was right.

[Deana Leigh]

This really seems like you hated this house, and maybe perhaps you did even if it is a work of fiction. Your writing style is very dramatic which is great! You use a lot of grammatical pauses which adds to the story and the drama.
If you want to add drama, I'd suggest breaking stories up into paragraphs and really using natural grammar to add to add pauses (periods, semi colons, colons, etc.) This was a really excellent story though and I thought your syntax was phenomenal.