Letter from the Ghost That Haunts Your Stairwell
To whom it may concern,
My bafflement at the predicament I find myself trapped with has grown to massive, oaken proportions. It is my hope that dictating these thoughts to paper may provide some clarity to the matter. Setting my thoughts to print so that my own words may stare back at me has always loosed new revelation and perspective in my mind, and it is my hope that doing so in this case will provide a panacea of sorts. This missive has a dual purpose, for I seek answers both from you and myself.
Firstly I am afraid I must trouble you with the matter of the stairwell, as it seems that the branches of my madness stem from the trunk of its complexity. I am growing increasingly incensed at the tricks which those accursed stairs play on me with rapid regularity. It is as if the steps themselves fear my tread, and so conspire with nature and God Himself to queer the reality around me. Naturally I hesitate in my steps when it takes but one to cast day into the deep of night, silence into bustle, streaking membranes of blood stain the wood and then are gone and vice versa. Rare are the instances when I am allowed to ascend the stairs unmolested by these swooping changes.
This brings me to my second, but just as dire, concern. These stairs are endless. As if unseating me from logic were not enough, now the wood and varnish themselves mock me by multiplying impossibly. My memory is not so mired in shadow that I cannot remember the very spring in which my father constructed our manor, taking immaculate care in its craft, building all to withstand the ravage of nature and time, and yet keeping space for the very art that occurs all around us. The very curves and whorls of absolute God's creation that propel us forward unknowingly yet instill in us a great pride in His works and their cycles. The ornate workings of the wooden banister are but a tiny extension of this, yet they possess the same spirit, and it troubles me greatly that this which is divine should conspire me to madness.
More and more as of late I have spotted mysterious apparitions in my seemingly endless journey up the stairs. A wide manner of folk these ghosts are, crossing lines of class and color with a quickness that I have never before encountered. They allow me only brief moments of contact before they vanish, fuzzing at the lines, their colors breaking apart like a cheap painting exposed to the elements. Their manner of dress I have found grows only more and more garish and confusing as they continue to appear to me. Not once have I been able to communicate with the baffling figures.
I sincerely wish that I could, though I know not what my actions would be should this ever happen. With my right hand I would strangle the ethereal life from them and send them spiraling back down into the Devil's abyss that spawned their malevolence. With my left hand I would caress and plead for my case, for my release, for word of the world outside, for word of my beloved Josephine.
Can you conceive of the monstrous frustration that grows within a soul when they are denied the sight of their love? Such anger brings with it a righteous power, and there are many a time within which I feel I could split apart the madness that engulfs me with but a stern gaze. My eyes would burn a swath through existence itself if I knew it would clear the bridge to her.
I continue to hope that Josephine will soon leave the drawing room on the second floor to inquire as to the noise I made upon entering. There was a sharp booming snap as I arrived back from the monthly gathering of Architectural Guild, surely I broke something of import. (I could not determine the source of the noise, as it was dark. All I can recall is arriving at the foot of the stairs shortly afterward.) The absence of light might indicate that Josephine retired early, although that is a rare occurence, as Josephine has always made sport from the deep hours of the night and the span of stillness before dawn.
Perhaps Josephine herself has become trapped in the madness and cannot find her way to me. What undeserved irony that would indeed be, to be mired in such Hell.
I am running out of room. Having no paper, ink, or related utensils on my person, I am forced to inscribe my fears on the fine panels of soft balsam that abut these stairs. I will have much time to contemplate these words.
With hope, so will you.
My bafflement at the predicament I find myself trapped with has grown to massive, oaken proportions. It is my hope that dictating these thoughts to paper may provide some clarity to the matter. Setting my thoughts to print so that my own words may stare back at me has always loosed new revelation and perspective in my mind, and it is my hope that doing so in this case will provide a panacea of sorts. This missive has a dual purpose, for I seek answers both from you and myself.
Firstly I am afraid I must trouble you with the matter of the stairwell, as it seems that the branches of my madness stem from the trunk of its complexity. I am growing increasingly incensed at the tricks which those accursed stairs play on me with rapid regularity. It is as if the steps themselves fear my tread, and so conspire with nature and God Himself to queer the reality around me. Naturally I hesitate in my steps when it takes but one to cast day into the deep of night, silence into bustle, streaking membranes of blood stain the wood and then are gone and vice versa. Rare are the instances when I am allowed to ascend the stairs unmolested by these swooping changes.
This brings me to my second, but just as dire, concern. These stairs are endless. As if unseating me from logic were not enough, now the wood and varnish themselves mock me by multiplying impossibly. My memory is not so mired in shadow that I cannot remember the very spring in which my father constructed our manor, taking immaculate care in its craft, building all to withstand the ravage of nature and time, and yet keeping space for the very art that occurs all around us. The very curves and whorls of absolute God's creation that propel us forward unknowingly yet instill in us a great pride in His works and their cycles. The ornate workings of the wooden banister are but a tiny extension of this, yet they possess the same spirit, and it troubles me greatly that this which is divine should conspire me to madness.
More and more as of late I have spotted mysterious apparitions in my seemingly endless journey up the stairs. A wide manner of folk these ghosts are, crossing lines of class and color with a quickness that I have never before encountered. They allow me only brief moments of contact before they vanish, fuzzing at the lines, their colors breaking apart like a cheap painting exposed to the elements. Their manner of dress I have found grows only more and more garish and confusing as they continue to appear to me. Not once have I been able to communicate with the baffling figures.
I sincerely wish that I could, though I know not what my actions would be should this ever happen. With my right hand I would strangle the ethereal life from them and send them spiraling back down into the Devil's abyss that spawned their malevolence. With my left hand I would caress and plead for my case, for my release, for word of the world outside, for word of my beloved Josephine.
Can you conceive of the monstrous frustration that grows within a soul when they are denied the sight of their love? Such anger brings with it a righteous power, and there are many a time within which I feel I could split apart the madness that engulfs me with but a stern gaze. My eyes would burn a swath through existence itself if I knew it would clear the bridge to her.
I continue to hope that Josephine will soon leave the drawing room on the second floor to inquire as to the noise I made upon entering. There was a sharp booming snap as I arrived back from the monthly gathering of Architectural Guild, surely I broke something of import. (I could not determine the source of the noise, as it was dark. All I can recall is arriving at the foot of the stairs shortly afterward.) The absence of light might indicate that Josephine retired early, although that is a rare occurence, as Josephine has always made sport from the deep hours of the night and the span of stillness before dawn.
Perhaps Josephine herself has become trapped in the madness and cannot find her way to me. What undeserved irony that would indeed be, to be mired in such Hell.
I am running out of room. Having no paper, ink, or related utensils on my person, I am forced to inscribe my fears on the fine panels of soft balsam that abut these stairs. I will have much time to contemplate these words.
With hope, so will you.
posted by greenland at 4:30 AM
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