Spending six hours in a derelict Victorian terrace house, blindfolded, examining the front room and whispering to its presences.
The abandoned house felt like a living presence to me. In some places it was stripped to its skeleton, wooden lathes exposed, floors missing and only joists remaining. Some walls still had plastered sections, but even those were crumbling and scarred. Chimneys were sealed, and windows were nailed shut with no way to breathe. My room had an old floor – wide, plain boards. They were a dull grey color with years of dust and grim ground into them. But they still smelled of wood, of trees. I wanted to touch the house’s skin, comfort it, heal some of its wounds.
And what of the people who had once lived there? Do they ever return to the house? Can their presences be felt? We looked for the grave of a man who had lived there for many years, but the section of the cemetery where he was buried was overrun by brambles obscuring tumbled and broken gravestones. It felt equally abandoned.
I spent six hours in the room, blindfolded. I sat quietly, waiting. I inhaled the breath of the room, letting the house enter me. I ingested it through all my other senses beyond sight. It was a quiet performance, often still, with small movements, pauses, listening. I whispered to the room, to those who had lived there, listening. I crawled into corners, smelled everything, poking between gaps in the floorboards and into holes in the wall. Always listening. I touched the room’s wounds as gently as I could, feeling cracked plaster, splintered wood, nails, and things unknown. There were presences in the room with me during those six hours. I was never entirely sure who they were.
I wished that I could have opened the windows.
What might have the wind restored?
What would have been released?
