The picture above is not the house but is similar to my childhood memory.
Growing up in Floral Park, my BFF and I would often take long walks through the neighborhood. Sometimes with a destination in mind and other times, not so much. This was a good way to squelch boredom and feed our mutually inquisitive minds. Often creating short stories of fantasy and sometimes plain goofiness, there was one paranormal encounter we didn't have to spin, because this one was very real.
A house in the neighborhood that drew us in every time we saw it. A home where stolen peeks through the front window revealed a world that was clearly from the distant past. An old Victrola on a corner table, the sofa with fabric that could've of very easily been found in a Victorian home perched high on a hill in the roaming streets of San Francisco, and antiquities displayed more for decoration rather than museum pieces.
Our burning desire to gain entry was always met with a locked door. However, that's not the strange part of my story. The eeriness surrounding this home was its ability to appear and disappear without so much as a whisper left behind. Somehow, this structure managed to take its place on the block and when it was gone all evidence left with it. There was no baron land or vacant lot where the house stood, it was as if it had never been there at all.
Sometimes I'd take walks on my own, trying to catch a glimpse of the transition, but I was never that lucky. I'd simply walk by it, or not. We were never able to find out anything that would satisfy our curiosity, and eventually both of us moved away. I have no idea what became of our mystery house but I do have a theory.
I believe the house is close to a portal in time. Sharing the space between the past and present, it pops back and forth with the overlap. I spoke to my BFF about this a few weeks ago, and much like the curse of memory loss to the kids in Stephen Kings novel, IT, her memory had to be jarred. The more I spoke of our encounter, the more the cloud was lifted until she herself had clear memories of our time spent trying to investigate our elusive house. Why did I remember so vividly? I don't know. Her guess is the sensitivity I share within my family has left me open, connected. I should add my BFF possess a level of sensitivity of her own. Often knowing things before they happen. Maybe this was our connection, maybe this is why we share this memory when others I've asked from the neighborhood do not. How this didn't effect the neighbors or anyone else on the block is as big a mystery as the house itself.
Whatever it is, it stays with me. A picture clear enough to be more like a current event rather than a memory. Maybe one day I'll get back to the old neighborhood and have the opportunity to dig deeper into the home that was there...until it wasn't.
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