1/20/17

Autumn returned and calm settled over the hill.  The anguished sun had just touched the summit of the distant headlands; its parting rays emanated from the steel dome of a silo and the wind sent waves shimmering through the grass down the slope of the valley. At the peak of the agrarian precipice, a timeworn oak writhed from the soil and its appendages gnarled against power lines that swooped like decked ribbon in perfect periodicity across a desolate pasture, seemingly undisturbed by the passing murder which claimed its perch. Beneath a rot-blotched roof of corrugated tin, the ashen cladding of a rural lodge stripped like bark revealing raw flesh underneath. Its plywood threshold was met the end of a gravel path winding in from the road. The vantage of the hilltop estate exposed decrepit smokestacks from beyond the pines exhausting an opaque white which diffused to meld a thin veil over the urban backdrop. In the adjacent yard, a small riding mower had succumb to the predominance of the landscape, its blades and gears overrun with vegetation.  Resuscitated brush encroached upon all of the inanimate, clinging flush with any form or curvature.
At its southern-facing wall, the boy unfolded rusted bilco doors with a metallic screech, revealing a concrete stairwell plunging into familiar obscurity. Amidst his descent he had felt the step begin to crumble beneath his foot and hastily braced the inner cement wall. The soles of his shoes skated down the stairway and the jagged fixtures grazed up the back of his shirt, grinding against the osseous cogs of his spine. He landed with his bare back to the dank foundation with gravel embedded in his palms. He whisked cobwebs from his stubbled face and brow.
“Did you bust your ass, my love?” the girl jeered from above ground.
The boy peered up behind him at the inpouring rays that illuminated a plume of turbulent dust. Conscious of the rafters above, he slowly rose to his feet, brushed the soot from his pants and flapped the back of his shirt.
	“I scraped my back a little but I’m alright.” he replied.
The girl followed his lead, concentrating on her footing and sliding by her rump down each step, wary of making a similar misstep. The boy studied her calculated, dainty movements as well as each responding contraction in her facial expression. The white of her thighs flashed from beneath the hem of her denim shorts.
“Very graceful.” He bantered.
	“Why thank you, sir.” She returned, patting out the dust around her hips and buttocks.
	They began to venture with crooked necks through the narrow decay. The air was saturated stale with unstirred sediment and musty timber. Putrid effluvia of aged motor oil mingled from rusted cans stockpiled years ago in the outer recesses of the crawl space. A brick column stood as a monolith dividing the cavity into cardinal pockets of darkness, each hoarding their own plunder.
“Who crammed all this stuff down here like this?” the girl inquired.
“I don’t know, probably my grandpa.” the boy replied. “Or maybe someone else came through to clear out the house and tossed it all down here. My family’s been lookin’ to renovate the place hoping to sell it. ”
The couple shuffled up a slender wooden staircase riddled with warp and rot and squealed a grease-smudged sliding door off of its track and entered the kitchen. The taupe linoleum bulged and eroded from generations of incessant rain and abrasion of the parade of those who dwelled upon it. The quaint country eat-in housed a two-bay sink recessed into a maple counter top which terminated at a refrigerator at one end and a gas stove at the other. Kiddy-cornered at the opposite side was a praline fabric, button-tufted recliner chair, mammoth in stature, aslope upon a haphazard accumulation of archival newsprint and tabloid. Though sturdy in build, coil could be seen protruding into the seat. Stowed away behind it beneath a canopy of cobweb which stretched from the wall to the headrest of the throne stood stacks of glass mason jars with holes punctured through the lids. In the center of the mangled floor stood an oblong chestnut dining table which sat eight chairs. Beneath one of its tapered legs a piece of cardboard folded in half twice and wedged beneath the copper foot. At the head of the table, a delicately embroidered pillow with lace frills was laid on top of one of the chairs.
The disparaging rays which managed to pierce through the voids in the plywood highlight residuos film that over years settled over the furnishings like peach fuzz.