Abandoned Houses.

I drove by it everyday and thought of what it must have been. To any other person it was just an old abandoned house, but to me it was more. To me it held a mystery, something almost magical. I think abandoned houses have a way of doing that. They hold secrets inside their walls. They have stories to tell--if they could only tell us.

I imagine what the house must have been like in it's prime. I imagine it had a lush, green lawn with flowers that drooped down to kiss the pathway that led to the door. An old porch swing where lovers said their goodbyes. The front window open with the crisp autumn breeze blowing through the oven warmed kitchen. Beautiful, strong front doors hat opened wide to welcome guests. The house must have been so full of life. People everywhere. Children running in and out of the house all day. Old men sitting in rocking chairs. I imagine that everything slowed down when you walked through the front gate, that life seemed simpler.

Now there is no grass. There are no flowers. No lover's farewell on the porch swing. There are only dead plants that cover every available surface. The front windows are broken, shattered. The old curtains hang through the glass. There is a gaping hole where the front doors once stood. Now they are covered in plywood. It's nothing but a skeleton of what the house once was. Just a chalk outline of a fallen corpse.

It's like the house died--it no longer has a spirit to keep it alive. The spirit left with the people and their things. There is nothing left in the house other than the things that are left for me. Two things. They are silly things really. I think it's funny that the two things that are left for me contradict themselves. The first thing is the mystery. The mystery is left. The mystery makes me want to come in and explore. Explore every room in the house and every cupboard. Here's the irony. The other thing left for me is a sign. A sign that won't let me explore. It won't let me enjoy the mystery. A giant sign with orange letters that says: KEEP OUT!

This was an assignment for my Spanish class. Obviously, the original is in Spanish, but I thought it would be better appreciated here in English. Remeber when I said that I wanted to do a cool project. Well, I wimped out, but this was kinda a piece of it.