by Chris Fletcher

Created on: October 31, 2008

I pulled the coat tight across my chest, adjusting my scarf so it didn't bunch up awkwardly around my neck. It was so bitterly cold outside, I really didn't want to be venturing out if I wasn't well covered. Even if my little trip only took a few minutes, I had developed a real aversion to cold weather over the past few months.

The fire made a few excited cracking noises, jumping snaps as if it had just had a bright idea. The light bathing the room was a warm, inviting and almost classical glow. I really did not want to leave I hadn't had cause to go out for days now, which was fine by me. Whoever had owned this house, back when people actually owned these places, had an exhaustive library, which could keep me occupied and reading for years. Literally, years.

I had found this place mostly by chance, and decided to call it my own. It was a three storey stately affair: columns by the front door, red brick exterior. Huge, secure windows that offered a magnificent view of the fields outside through thick glass; reinforced gates at the end of the driveway. Plenty of trees. I had to scale quite a wall even get into the property's boundaries a wall that most people these days would have no chance of navigating.

The place had been entirely deserted, but there were a few sparse signs of recent occupation. Whoever had lived here before had obviously left in quite a hurry. I found no indication of robbery or violence they had evidently packed some things in a haphazard fashion, loaded the car and left. I thought it interesting that they had locked the gate on the way out, as if they were just going on vacation or to a friend's house down the street.

I had found some mail of theirs, but didn't read the names. That would probably have saddened me, giving these people identities, not knowing where they were now. Without names, they were without faces. Without faces, they warranted no sympathy. I used every letter and bill as kindling for the grandiose fireplace in the library, the room I occupied exclusively.

After braving long weeks of the winter outside or roughing it in abandoned buildings, I chanced across this house several miles outside whatever town I had been traveling through. I had been wandering for longer than I could remember, and had no idea where I was. There weren't any newspapers, local or otherwise, to give me the names of the places I passed through. And of course there was no television anymore. Walk long enough, and the towns stop changing. Without the people

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