A wailing storm brandishes its fists with furious vigor. Despite standing solidly for centuries, my rich mahogany door wavers, the polished arch trembling as it’s battered with spears of rain, while blunted iron stud work does nothing to deter such ire. The wood creaks and groans, its only escape from the attack, but it does nothing to dull the intense pain.
If only the Moon could reach down her hands and pull the storm away.
Please, Moon, I am tired of trying not to let the cold in.
Yet, she only watches from afar in all her lustrous glory, orbs of her weary light flickering through plain crystal windows and hovering above the new fuzzy periwinkle carpet. She misses the excitement of dancing with the Virgin Mary and the saints set in stained glass; twirling in colors she imagined most vibrant in the day, across uneven, dust-coated floorboards to the whistle of the wind through old, rusted organ pipes.
The rooms had lain bare for so many years, whispers of past prayers lingering on damp walls, squirrels nesting in rotted pews, and the scent of musty bibles and old scripture permeating the air. I am less alive, but so are all things that are left to grow old.
In times before, the world glowed. Inside my four smooth, cobbled walls, angels would sing with renowned delight to the chorus of a village choir, who, despite their small number, could bring forth a grin to even the most grudge-laden blacksmith or jaded farmer’s wife. Children giggled, clutching their bibles with sticky fingers, pretending to read the words they did not yet understand the gravity of, while their mothers could not hide the shades of pink that arose on their cheeks as the young vicar spoke of sin, his gaze fixing on each of them in turn.
The Sun let his rays bounce rainbows across the congregation, revealing the twirling trails of smoke that lingered in the air as hundreds of candles flickered in memory of those who had been lost or left the earthly plane too soon.
It was warm. It was light. It was magic.
But as each congregation grew old and the cobble crumbled, the stories in the stone replaced with beige brick, the crooked roof tiles fixed, and the Virgin Mary shattered as the glass was “too thin”—who wouldn’t crave the old and the emptiness that I had grown accustomed to?
As each part of me was replaced with something new, a piece of my soul chipped away until all that was left was my skeleton of thick beams and warped doors. They covered thin walls with cheap plaster and sterile white paint, rows of cubicles and computers set where once people bowed their heads and relied on faith, Styrofoam coffee cups the people now worship. Sat under buzzing fluorescent light, they whisper of a haunting, voices and doors opening on their own, shadows flickering in corners, and a phantom organ playing a tune. A ghost, they murmur. Yes, I claim that title with pride; what is a ghost if not the echo of something that used to be?
Eliza Wilson has always had a wild imagination and a need to share it with the world. As a Creative Writing graduate, she spends most of her time working on her fantasy trilogy, Secrets of Pinewood. You can usually find Eliza sitting in a cozy corner of a cafe, oat milk, iced vanilla latte in hand, hunched over a notebook, and escaping into the world at the tip of her pen.
Featured image by Andrew Seaman on Unsplash.
