Death'a Castle
I approached Death's Castle... Finally.
I had been there once, long ago. It was another life, but I remember. As I saw the beautiful white walls rising from the cemetery ground a sense of homecoming washed over me. Looking at the wrought iron gates was like falling into a long lost lovers arms. As I surveyed the massive castle before me I wiped away a fallen tear. Home!
I held my hands out to feel the energy of the place, soaking it up. As I approached the door, my soul darkened and blended into the shadows. We became one. I felt whole again. I felt... Alive, but not in a worldly way. No. I felt as though I had been dead, and I had risen.
The heavy door swing shut behind me. I gazed at the immaculate marble interior as silence swallowed my senses. My ears rang loudly with the silence known only by the dead. By breath sounded like waves crashing on a beach. When I finally walked, my steps rang like thunder down the solemn stone passages. Left and right, pathways came and went. The ceiling was stories over my head, the corridors an endless maze around me. The walls were filled with the remains of our ancestors. Silent.
A great crashing sound echoed from somewhere in deaths castle, not far from me! I jumped and instinctively ducked. Silence again... Then light banging again, and again. It sound like somebody was throwing a pipe around and hitting it on the walls. My limbic system told me to leave now! But I drew in a loud breath and stood tall. This was an opportunity.
For years I had been an atheist. I used to visit cemeteries all the time when the only corpse I had seen belonged to that of my mother. I kissed the cheek of her recently departed body and went to the bathroom... I was more pale than she.
But now I have seen too many bodies to count. I've watched people turn from living humans into corpses before my very eyes and despite my best efforts. I no longer needed cemeteries because they no longer held mysteries or secrets for me. I knew what they knew. The dead were silent. Still. They were entirely apathetic to the world around them... And will forever be.
So I started deeper into Death's castle. Speak to me! I cried silently to myself. Prove me wrong and show me the dead live on!
So I searched and scoured every passage way, very corridor, each room nook and cranny. I started at the bottom and worked my way up some 7 stories. I expected to find a grounds keeper or staff but alas, nothing.
Nothing at all. Except the banging.
I'm sitting here now writing this at the pinnacle of the spire of Death's castle. With no fear and all fuck you I faced death, ready to confront humanities greatest fears in search of an answer. And nothing.
The banging is below me now. It's less frequent, but it always stays one room away. Where ever I am, it is not. So I sit here in the summer heat of this mausoleum amongst my kinsmen. Sweat of my desperate search gleans off my arms and hands as I sit in an antique chair overlooking all of Portland through the one attic window. Alone with the Steele family and the Clement family and many more. Here I am home. Alone with the dead... Who don't speak, and don't care for me or my company. I know that soon enough I'll be among them and in their ranks of names in the walls. They know... Nothing. And if I'm wrong, they're not correcting me.