The Predator House

  I vividly recall how the rain smelled as it beat against the dirt outside of that house. The way it slowly trickled down the half-opened window colliding with another drop just before racing to the bottom screen. I kept my head against the wall wishing I could imagine what it must be like to be a raindrop. To feel that adrenaline rush as I plummeted from the enormous fluffy white clouds that draped across the sky. I recall the silence of the room around me, only hearing the steady drip of rainwater knocking ever so gently on the face of an old piece of rotten wood that lay beneath the window on the ground. The nails in the wood had been painted orange and brown of rust over time, much like the color I was feeling, dirty. There was no beauty about things that had rusted. Rust was simply a shell that coated and ate away all of the beauty beneath it. I can’t recall a time when I truly felt beautiful. There was no time in my mind where I remember ever feeling unmasked. Maybe it was due to the fact that all the rain, water, and corrosion in my life had happened before I ever knew what beauty was. Perhaps this collection of filth was my version of beauty. Maybe it was never meant for anyone to see what lay beneath the surface of my outermost being. I watch the water pool up in the crevices of the wood attempting to drown the nail, instantly believing that I can smell the oxidation process just as the two components meet. Though we are whole now, I am aware that the two of us, that nail and myself, will eventually disintegrate into nothing. I suppose that may be the beauty of decay.

  I vividly recall how the rain smelled as it beat against the dirt outside of that house. I recall the thud of the shudders against the house as the wind whispered to it violently. The whistling as it gusts beneath the loose pieces of tin that hang from the roof. How the high-pitched eeriness of the sound would cause the small blonde hairs along my skinny arms to stand at dramatic heights. My senses take me back in time to nearly twenty-one years ago. I stare out the window fearing that the carpet glue that remains atop the hardwood floor would inch closer and closer to me until we became one. The draft in the house blows dirt and pet hair into the glue trapping it as if it were some kind of prey. Suddenly, I feel as if my feet are entangled in the stickiness that covered the floor. For every knock along the house from the shudders I imagine that instead of the shudders, that sound is from my kneecaps meeting the floor as I try to make my escape from the glue. Like a mouse inside of a sticky trap, every movement attaches me elsewhere along the glue. I lay along the glue, pet hair in my face dancing as if there had been a celebration for my capture. I panic knowing that this may be the final end. That there will never be a way out of this house. 

  I can still vividly recall how the rain smelled as it beat against the dirt outside of that house, despite the mold that painted the gloomy, nicotine-stained walls. I am no longer in fear of the things that could possess me. I no longer fear the rust, the ugly filth, the glue. Instead, I watch the rain outside the window, paralyzed as I dwell in the glue. Now, I have become a mold spore. Like wildfire, I will spread climbing and covering every inch of these walls. Pieces of me will scatter to demand my poison stain the walls and seep into the foundation of this house. Every unhealed piece of me will wreak havoc on what is left of this place. This house which I, only six, call my home. I smile, for the first time in my life. As the hours tick by, I become stronger. Alas, I reach the window seal. Together we watch the rain trickling along the window. Before slipping out of the half-opened window, I turn back to admire the damage I’ve caused. I’ve been the raindrop, the rust, the decay, the glue, the pet hair, the mold spore, the poison. I have been the prey. No longer am I a hostage within my mind. No more am I held hostage by this memory. Regardless of my shape when I leave, I know anything has to be better than this. I wave goodbye to the predator house, diving headfirst out of my favorite window.

  I can still vividly recall how the rain smelled as it beat against the dirt outside of that house. The way it slowly trickled down the half-opened window colliding with another drop just before racing to the bottom screen. I recall the thud of the shudders against the house as the wind whispered to it violently. The whistling as it gusts beneath the loose pieces of tin that hang from the roof. Despite my leaving, the years that have long gone by, and the positive growth I have endured. The house has since been demolished. Only debris lies upon that land in dangerously high piles. I plead myself not to consider all that must lie beneath. Sometimes I will drive by there, I’ll put the car in park and stand. Alongside the guardrail by the road, I close my eyes to take me back. After all this time I’ve asked myself what I already know the answer to. This a question that most still often wonder, but only few will hear me confess. Twenty-seven years is a lot of time, but nowhere near enough for what had been endured. For me, it is no surprise that I can still vividly recall how the rain smelled as it beat against the dirt outside of that house.