Messing around

         Shadows always came back. From the brightest days they grow. Starting small, just under your feet, they stretch and reach beyond you to the very edges of you and further. For a few months now, I have felt the shadows spread and wiggle beneath me. They call and whisper at night and practically scream during the day. There is no safety. There is no security they say. 

The idea of a haunted house has always intrigued and terrified me. The notion that forces beyond our understanding could malevolently hide in plain sight among the furniture and trappings of a home is a very paranoia inducing thought. The notion of privacy and safety is practically destroyed upon the realization that ghosts are real. How could we know that we were truly alone? How could we know that we were truly safe in our own home? Perhaps that's why we like the notion of a haunted house specifically and not the idea of ghosts being a more ubiquitous feature of the world. The idea of a specific place where they could congregate gives us the horror fantasy we want while simultaneously allowing us to have a retreat should things get too spooky, too scary for us to deal with. Or maybe haunted houses are a simply an illustration of how our memory works. Memory and the ability to recall memories is based largely on associations, mementos of the memory lets call it. For example, the smell of popcorn can remind of us the first time we took a date to a movie. The feel of cool water on hot skin can remind of us cramming into public pools in summer to beat the heat so why can't a home associate itself with feelings so malignant and terrible that it is easier to call them horror than to accept them as reality. Perhaps that's all haunted houses are, a memento of the emotional or mental torture that can happen in a home. Note too that it's almost always a haunted house. Why not a haunted bank, or a haunted mall? Now obviously there can be examples of any place other than a home but haunted house is so built into our culture that any other combo simply screams campy.