The silence of my ruined home is appalling. I can almost hear the termites gnawing at the rafters, devouring this house from inside-out as I sit here in my office alone. The mold is gone, as is the unnatural smell of the chemicals the contractors used to kill it. All that’s left are a few gutted rooms, a heap of disconnected appliances, exposed wires and gas lines, various items of clothing, heaps of paper and books, debris, and an old glass pipe and butane torch I found in a drawer, stashed away however long ago, relics of a horrible era of my life long passed come back to haunt me wrapped in a new nightmare. I also have a gun and several magazines of ammunition at the foot of the twin bed I’ve set up in what was my daughter’s room. She and my wife have gone to stay with my mother in another state, as this house is not fit for them to inhabit in present condition. I am merely it’s keeper, a custodian of this rotting shell trying to get all the pieces of what was once a decent life put back together without further damage. I don’t know what will happen, but I am terrified.
The other night while lying restlessly in bed trying to not dwell too long on how miserable this broken little house feels without the joy and warmth of my family, I remembered walking into a 7-11 late at night covered in blood from multiple self-inflicted wounds. I was wearing a white t-shirt and had written something in blood across the front of the shirt. It either read “not my blood” or “stop me”, though now I can’t recall which phrase I had written. The 7-11 clerk looked mortified when I approached the counter to buy cigarettes. I remembered finding the whole transaction more than a little amusing. I chuckled aloud to myself and fell asleep soon after.
Towers of Rust 