mictlan

This is a true story about my home. I am to leave it soon enough, I think, though I have lived here little over a year, and it is a little tradition that I give you a tour of my house.

I live in a tall house on a little road, between a temple and a factory, west of the sun and south of the war. The road is cramped and crowded and curves and writhes all too much on its brief length. But my house, being tall, is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside, and from my roof I see the unobstructed sky in every direction. I saw the planes the night of the air raid, anti-aircraft fire like a hundred thousand fireflies, and I have made love under the moon and the searchlights.

There is a small pipe on one floor, sticking a few inches out of the ground and shaped like a periscope. If it were a periscope, some observer homonculus would have the occasional close-up of my bare ankles.

My house is square on the outside, but on the inside is composed of strange angles and odd corners. From one high corner, I once looked down out of a tiny barred window and saw temple dancers preparing for one of the annual processions: a drummer, his entire midriff red-sashed, tapping out nervously on a two-faced drum, and two dancers, one in full costume and the other one bare-chested, being helped into his chains and his bracelets and his head-dress. I avoid watching the processions, though I would probably have an excellent view from my rooftop -I have always avoided the processions, because I am not a believer and pageantry means nothing to me. But my house has chosen to be a temple's neighbour, and what can you say to that?

From another corner, I have a view of a distant neighbouring roof, upon which sits a small white chair. The chair is child-sized and weatherbeaten. I have never seen anybody sit on it.

The house dislikes too much light. It prefers a weak yellow light to the harsh white lights that I bring home, and it shows that distaste by exploding lightbulbs and scattering shards of broken glass petulantly every time someone tries to brighten it. It is a strong-willed house, in many ways -there are some doors it prefers to be kept closed where I prefer to keep them open, or open where I would have them closed, and it will seek to confound me by funneling gusts of wind through its strange corners and angles, slamming doors and cracking its own plaster in glee and triumph.

When it rains -it is raining now- the stairs become wet and dangerous, because my house believes that life should be lived in full awareness of the possibility of death -that, as someone said, the only way to learn to live was to prepare for death, and the only way to prepare for death was to learn how to live. Facilis descensus averni, they said.

posted by: mictlantecuhtli at 03:09 | link | comments (3) |

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