Haunt
I always find myself revisiting certain places, my old haunts I suppose. Nothing unusual in that, one would think, but in my case it’s a bit odd. See I was raised in what is now a ghost town, and not one of the interesting ones. It’s not a scene from an old western, it’s not the sight of some catastrophic natural disaster, just boring old economics. Money leaves, and people soon after it; only the buildings and roads stay. And yet……I find myself drawn to this place, to my old classroom, my old desk, my old home, the corner store I loitered in front of, to……I don’t even really know. The town died, but in a funny way, that’s kept the memories alive. No-one will ever bulldoze the corner store for a Taco-Bell. No-one will ever renovate the school beyond recognition. They’ll slowly decay, but they won’t really change. In a way, they’ll still be recognizable to me. No-one else visits. There’s no tourists. My family spits at the thought of this place, the hurt we went through will leaving. My old friends are scattered, no good way to stay in touch. My new friends find it boring and far away, not that I have any really. And so I wander through this town, alone. It’s mine, and no-one elses. When I close my eyes, I can see us riding on bikes, jumping off a ramp made of a two by fours and an empty crate, the inevitable falls never scaring us. I hear a teacher yelling at us to be careful, smell the freshly cut grass, taste the cheap vanilla ice cream… it feels more real than my life after leaving ever did. Here there is still color, and sound, and life. Everywhere else seems dead. And so I always find myself revisiting certain places, my old haunts. I’ve lost track of the time. Everything beyond here feels so bland. I struggle to remember it, and I don’t have the willpower to really try. Why would I want to? Sometimes it feels like I’ve never left this place…and maybe I never have.
2022-10 Spooktober Prompt 13 - Haunt - Written on 2022-10-13
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