Big Dump

The thought comes to me after 20 years of dormancy, an hour before I usually wake up, in bed on a chilly morning, with birds’ voices trickling through an open window. I’ve never wanted to buy this house, with its stale air and, I am sure, a morbid history. It is a foul house, I think, as I lie there with sleeplessly open eyes, with the generations of people going through it and littering it with their upset, dysfunctional, and thrillingly similar families. I think of the wives cooking meals and scrubbing the floors and dying slowly in the bedrooms, I think of children’s minds ravished by their parents’ and I think of husbands cutting their flesh in mute desperation.

I wanted to build a new house, but Jonathan noted that it would be a huge and timely undertaking, as I would certainly want to design bits and pieces myself. I relented to his practical logic and allowed myself to be moved here, and I was happy here despite the ghouls and monsters I sometimes imagined in the dim hallways, their moans separating from the regular whine of the wind outside.

It takes, I think, a great courage to be happy in this house, to settle the angry ghosts with serenity and peace. Dining together with Jonathan, I sometimes imagine the strangled conversations at the table, words uttered in deep remorse; I tell Jon about my fantasies and he listens to me as the air thickens, as if the whole house is shocked that its secrets are spilling out.

When we make love I submit to him completely, out of my volition, feeling like an exhibitionist. There are dozens of imagined eyes in the dark corners and shadows – girls blushing and stealing glances, men angry and on the verge of yelling, wives following my every move with blank expressions, or facing away, in the corner.
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This is, of course, a "Yellow Wallpaper" rip-off.