Inside, you are struck by the stillness. It smells of dust and earth. The inside is much more seemly than the exterior, no visible sign of decay. Even the door shines still polished. But it is cold. Like the church on a hot summer’s day, only that you are already freezing. A huge staircase leading up in an arch, several doors leading from the entrance hall. The carpet is a deep shade of red. It is horribly dim, none of the little gaslights are on, no candles lit. But still, it feels almost lived in. You are almost sure that you can smell fresh cooking.

Even more so than the entrance hall, the corridors are cloaked in dull light, leaving everything a soft impression of itself, half between silhouette and real thing.

Is that not what you are now?

On the edge of being real and whole and alive, and of being nothing at all. A fever dream. On the edge of being broken and dusty and lonely and overgrown, and of being vast and rich and blooming. A ghost.

What makes a house alive?

What makes you alive?

There are doors leading elsewhere. Locked doors, broken doors, open doors, painted doors. And over some door frames, some select prodigy among them, there lies not a door, but a curtain. A thick and heavy thing, perfectly stitched in fine and finer detail. A waterfall on a summer morning. A group of whales encircling a ship. A group of wolves on the winter hunt. A lone man upon a mountain range.

And one of them is perfectly you.