Mansions
But.
Do you have to pray aloud? If you don't pray aloud will GOD still hear you?
This is an issue in many religions. A all knowing, all powerful GOD. Or one with limitations.
Thats all on that. Just a thought I wanted to remember. To throw out to the wind. See how well it flew and what reactions it got.
On to mansions.
I am insane. I have said it before. Again I say it. I am insane. Yet in my insanity I wish to take you on a journey. Inside my mind are mansions. I wish to walk you through some of mine, in hopes it will help you find some of your own.
Delapedated, falling apart, run down, ruined, ruins, decayed. This one finds you with a huge very imposing mansion. Its degradation not withstanding, there is no feeling of dread or fear. The buildings and their surrounding buildings are not evil. They don't feel any way uncomfortable. Searching the hidden areas and paths seem a fine thing to do. Yet there is a feeling of danger. A tickle down the spine. A ever present sense of foreboding only the hunted feel. There are bridges over lakes filled with crocodiles. Lakes fine and beautiful. Sun lapping the waves, and birds circling the air. Yet in the depths are fish. Food, yet evil. For the food chain can often go both ways. To enter into that water at the wrong time would be most foolish. There are lakes filled with alligators and crocodiles. Huge places where the water rises and recedes, and one must know when to dare near its edges, and when to leave them the hell alone. You could easily get eaten. The dream takes me and I walk farther. I find myself back in the runes. Once a fine mansion, now mold covers what once was fine wall paper. Dirt and leaves drift around what was a fine marbled dance floor. Part of the building is missing. Whole walls from one side seeming to have fell away or decayed. A set of stairs rising up to the second floor invites me to explore. For some reason I feel I have just "awakened" here. That I have been here many times, yet it is like I am returning suddenly. That what was once younger, possibly not new, but better kept. Is now old. Where once there were flower gardens, now I find dirt and weeds. On to the stairs I feel "compelled" to go.
I highlight the word because that is what I felt. You have to know this is real. This is no longer fiction. Soon you are going to step into my mind and I only hope I bothered to clean up a bit. Mind the mush, and wipe your feet.
I went to the stairs and climbed them. Keeping to the edge. They ended abruptly. A jump was needed to get to the next steps, and off I went. No sooner had I crossed the area, and had started exploring the second floor. I heard voices. Actually I don't think voices is right. It was more like screams. Humans are cattle. Sometimes we can play the wolf, but mostly as a species we are cattle. We want human contact. I wanted to go see who was screaming. Who was making noises that sounded human. But inside was a fear. A caution. Something about the sounds of those screams told me I was being hunted. Whatever it was screaming was looking for me. If they, it, them, found me I had feelings it wouldn't be good. Deeper into the second floor I went. Exploring quietly. I had already hidden in the building when I heard noises on the ground level. I felt somewhat safe where I was. The only entrance a jump. And none of the noises seemed to be near the stair area where I first climbed up. Ahead was a room with three walls. Ruined just like the rest of the building, but a ladder sat in the middle of the room. Rising up a good distance to a door in the ceiling.
I climbed the ladder, and had no fear the wrungs would break, or not be strong enough to bear my weight. It's as if the mansion was old, but all the parts left would stay forever as they were. No new parts would break. Nothing would get eaten by termites. No new mold would grow. Also I felt the reverse occured. Nothing could be fixed. Cleaning up would have no purpose. The mansion was old, and as it was. It demanded you accept that or go mad. It did not change. Only you did.
Ascending the ladder, I came to a large rectangular door. Shoving my shoulder against it I succeded in pushing it open enough I could crawl through the crack. Once inside I threw the door all the way open and pulled the ladder up after me. It was with practiced ease I accomplished all this. Something in the entire scene told me I had done this a thousand times before. But I swear it was the first time. I had just appeared there. As if I was asleep, then woke up. Throwing the ladder to the side, I shut the door, and bolted a latch my hands found readily. I was safe. Besides the ladder being up. The voices below me staying where they were. The door being latched. Something inside my said I was safe. Totally. For now. The same inside feeling. They weren't voices, just feelings. They told me I was safe here. But if i wanted to continue, keep going, progress, venture, journey, travel, see new things, I would have to leave. NOOOOOOOOO!
I'm a coward. I believe many of us are. And we only appear brave, because we chose the wrong cowardly action, and are misunderstood. So it wasn't bravery that forced me on but cowardice. I didn't want to die here. No matter how safe it felt.
Ahhh safety. Almost as safe as being nursed at your mother's breast. To laying in your lovers arms spent. Thats right I said spent. I'm tired after sex. Gotta problem with that? Fine then you mail me some viagra and I'll show you. But on to me being a craven bastard.
I decided to look around being the nitwit I am. Finding my eyes had adjusted a bit to the dark. I saw I was in a square room with two doors. The one I had entered. Coward that I am, I dismissed right away. Another at the top of a short flight of stairs. It was this door I felt I should go. But hey, did we say I had to go right away. What kind of craven coward, read this as cautious camper, would I be if I don't further explore my safety, read prison. I checked the room in hopes for something that would save me. Solve all my problems. You know. A refrigerator stocked with beer, cigarettes, and a stash of good pot, papers included please. And loe and behold. I found jack shit. Some rags. An old can. A damn plastic twinikie wrapper. Crap if I was McGuyver I'd already be flying the plane. I keep looking when I find a torch. Okay it's not a torch. It appears to be a table leg wrapped in a shirt, with some smelly old crap that looks like wax made from crap on it's tip. I would hazard we could call it a torch. Plus it had singed ends on it's tips, and parts of the fabric I assumed to be a shirt were burnt. Where there is a torch that requires fire, there is a way to start said same fire. Looking around more in an old table hidden in the shadows I found a lighter. One of those novel butane jobies where you clicked it, and electricity was generated by the action and fired the propane. I brought it near the torch and clicked it. Suprise suprise. Nothing. I clicked again. Same results. Nothing. What am I doing wrong? This has to be easier than this. I have done this before. Haven't I? Why do I feel I have done this before. Hundreds of times. Thousands? Millions? Dammit. I know I have done this before but I just don't know how many.
