A rickety shack decorates the top of the hill. It leans into the wind whistling though the gaps that perforate each worm-holed wooden board. Step closer to the failing foundations, dodge the slate tile that clatters to your right, missing your booted foot by inches as the roof sighs and lets it fall. Open the door, run your hand across the gouges scratched into the softened wood, deep and dreadful. Your first step puffs up a cloud of fine dust, the rest are muffled footprints in the snow. Once inside, a warmness envelopes you, and the wind can no longer kiss your cheeks with her icy lips.
Signs of those who came before lie scattered across the room: broken bottles, empty packets, an old sleeping bag. A once-grand four poster bed offers a fuzzy duvet of mould, still bent in the middle in memory of bodies from before.
The vines have also fed upon the shelter of the house; they’re thick and turgid in your hands like blood-filled mosquitos so fat you fear they’ll pop. Rip them from the walls and light them into a smoky blaze, dark clouds that threaten to further abuse the blackened walls. But the heat is nice and promises comfort, so scoot closer and settle in.
The warmth seeps into your bones and returns the flush to your cheeks. The sun has come back out, and your limbs have been warmed into action, so go, go ahead and step back through the door, leave your empty packets on the floor and the ivy to rot in the grate. Leave the door to swing upon its hinges and cry to see you leave.
Don’t look back when another tile falls and shatters into pieces, nor when the sharp sound splinters off the rocks. Don’t look back, let me fade into the mists of forgotten memories, to be taken out one rainy day and smiled at with the soft distance of sentiment, while I eventually crumble around some poor, unknowing soul. What does it matter? After all, I am only a halfway house.
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