figure of speech
a word or phrase that intentionally deviates from straightforward language use or literal meaning to produce a rhetorical or intensified effect (emotionally, aesthetically, intellectually, etc.) An oxymoron is one such example.

Oxymoron /ˌɒksɪˈmɔːrɒn/- two words used together that have, or seem to have opposite meanings

living death
oxymoron.

n.
a state of existence that is as bad as being dead; a life of hopeless and unbroken misery.

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I stand on the corner of a main road.

I was once a sight to behold in all my art deco beauty, now here I am, abandoned, with peeling paint work and rotting wood.

Doors on rusty hinges.

Windows without panes.

"Abandoned".

A word that lends itself to that which is sentient, something that lives, breathes and feels.

Something with self awareness enough to know that they've been left behind.

Do houses dream?

Do they yearn?

The answer is a resounding yes, on both counts.

Have you ever wondered; what if houses could talk?

What secrets would we tell?

What memories do the liminal spaces of our empty hallways hold?

Does the echo of laughter once heard within our walls linger, a song only we can hear?

When humans talk about being haunted by memories, they forget that us houses are haunted in just the same way.

When the late afternoon sun hits just right and pours in through my front windows that lack any curtains or glass, evidence of activity can be observed.

Dust floating on air, a fly buzzing, a clock ticking faintly in the next room, the batteries retaining life.

Still, the rooms are mostly empty.

Months ago when the humans left after a decade and a half here, they didn't really care enough about some of the possessions they had accumulated and once believed so important, to take them along.

A bitter reminder of how fleeting everything in this life is.

Even in the life of a house.

The sofa, once so coveted by the man who lived here - because his next door neighbor had one just like it and they'd been locked in a battle of one upmanship for as far back as either could remember - was left behind without a second thought.

Sad and strange how humans can toss something they once loved, aside at a later date.

(Including each other.)

Some rooms are more upsetting, because they're only half empty.

As though someone left in the middle of something and there is the promise of a return.

It's false hope.

They're not coming back.

Not now, not ever.

The youngest daughter's bedroom, an ode to teenage girlhood is a time capsule. With its lavender colored walls and sun bleached posters of pop stars, the edges curling, folding, slowly gving up.

Waiting for nothing but time to claim and age them more.

Make-up was left in the glare of the sun on the vanity dresser by the door.

Eyeshadows with names like "Tropical Night" and "90s glitter" have faded.


A clock has been ticking tirelessly throughout the house since they left.

Eventually it will wind down and cease.

Wherever its hands land, it will be that time forever after.

This is no longer a home, but a tomb.

A place of warm memories that leave me cold and shadows that steadily lengthen then blanket me in night.

A derelict shrine dedicated to the glory of what once was.

I am become living death.

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fiction.

... or is it?

Inspired by how abandoned houses and empty rooms have always made me both uncomfortable and sad. Something about them haunts me. I've always wanted to write from the point of view of one.
Also inspired by this house that I've loved since I was a child and is currently sadly in decay. I was writing as this house!

The last line is inspired by "I am become Death"; part of a famous quotation from the Bhagavad Gita. J. Robert Oppenheimer is popularly known to have cited the passage after witnessing the Trinity nuclear test.