100 Word Challenge: Pitcher Plant

A variety of delicious aromas wafted from the house a few times a year, tantalizing and tempting.  Many a weary and hungry traveler was drawn inside by those smells. 

The home was abandoned.  The roof had collapsed long ago, leaving the bones of the house disguised in the greenery of vines. Birds nested in the vestiges of the attic; mice furtively searched for seeds on the dirt floor.  Still, the smell of roasting turkey drew travelers inside, seeking dinner. They were welcomed, before floorboards opened, a maw of darkness swallowing their screams.

The house had an appetite of its own.




I'm trying out Tara's 100 Word Challenge once more, where the word is "dinner".  Check it out!

I Once Dreamt Of Being A Photographer

I got a new camera for my birthday.  Consequently, I've become a photograph-shooting fool.  So when we passed the abandoned wreckage of a house in Glen Rose, I made my husband and son sit in the air conditioning of the car while I took photos of the place.

I don't know anything about this house, except that it was there, it looked abandoned, and it probably burned down.  Which made me a little sad.  Someone obviously cared enough to spend hours creating the designs on the walls. 

While I was taking my pictures, various stories about the people who might have lived there went spinning through my head.  A man lovingly creating a house to bring his bride home, only to burn it down when she spurns his advances; an old couple living out their days, until one night their home burned down with them asleep inside.

I have a vivid imagination, but it's rare that an abandoned building is unusual enough to trigger such ruminations.  Plus, I got that "if I turn around really fast there will be a ghost standing behind me" vibe during my fifteen minutes looking about.  Many abandoned places seem alive with stories, just waiting to be told. 

This shot made me think of a fort in the Old West.

Maybe this small window was stained glass?

I think these are cedar logs, along with limestone rocks, but I'm certainly not an expert.

I just thought that this looked cool.

It's a shame that such a meticulously crafted home should be left empty and abandoned.   I made sure to say "Thank you" to the air around the house before I walked back to the car. 

Are there places in your world that seem alive with stories?

Kitchen Adventures, Part Two

I decided to cook steaks for my husband this evening. I decided to cook the steaks on the stove top. I don't know why; someone else out there might have thought that cooking steaks on a stove top was a bad idea. When it comes to cooking, that little voice in the back of my mind that tells me when something might not be a good idea is a selective mute.

Everything was going great, I thought. I even threw on a couple of pork chops so I wouldn't have to cook the next day. Larry was sitting in the kitchen reading the paper, and Zane was playing with his trains in the living room. Life was good. Since I prefer my steaks medium rare, my steak was cooked pretty quickly and taken off the heat. However, my husband is one of those "medium well" folk, so his steak was taking awhile, and I noticed that it was smoking a bit. Then I got distracted by thoughts of a side dish.

"Uh...honey?" I heard from behind me.

"What?" I answered, busy with some random vegetable I found in the freezer.

"Don't you think that you should turn the vent on?" Larry said. I looked up.

Enough white smoke filled the kitchen to elect a new pope. I hurriedly turned on the vent, opened some windows, and turned on a couple of ceiling fans. Too late. The smoke alarms went off. Larry started cracking up with laughter.

Our house came with an alarm system built in, and we pay someone to monitor our house so there's someone to call the proper emergency response people if we aren't there. The monitoring company, ADT, always calls first before they contact the authorities. So the phone rang, in our house full of smoke, with the alarm beeping and all the windows open. Larry answered the phone, still chuckling. I didn't hear the first part of the conversation, just the end.

"We are all fine. It's just my wife's cooking," Larry told the ADT person. He was still chuckling as he got off the phone.

I think that he can do the cooking next time, don't you?