Elderly Ikea Woman + Haunted House

Elderly Ikea Woman Claims Curbside Table

When you went and grabbed the paint chip peeled dolly you knew that the table would be yours. When you called out to me “will you help load this?” with my arms full of take out food, headed to my own table, you just knew I wasn’t going to say no. Nothing about you was new, nothing modern. Your jeans had seen a garden, your blouse threads parsing on one sleeve. Maybe for you, from the curb, the table looked more like a mirror. Scuffed, chipped, discarded, and you thought not this time, this time you will come home with me, you are useful and I can show you. As you wobbled over realizing there was no way you were loading the table alone, our eyes met, and my food was set down, and together onto the dolly we (but mostly me) let the table fall. On the dolly outstretched, the legs stood skyward like a dead bug and you only waved your hand above the big composite slab as thanks. Forward you wobbled, the dolly dragging behind you over the uneven sidewalk.

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3317 S Kinnickinnic Ave.

Before I even set food on the first board the stairs creaked my name. My name.. my name.. the house was wrapping itself around me, leaving me rooms without an exit. Without an exit I’d find eternity in the house, in the white peeling cupboards, and the wood grain floors worn black. Blackness crawled in all the edges of every room, crawled along the baseboards, crawled along the ceilings behind the light fixtures, crawled even in the corners of the bathroom sink. Sinking into the old carpet as I reached the second story landing I looked out on a hardwood wall where I entered through what was once the stain glass door. Doors inside the house were endless, almost as endless as the whispers kissing the hairs on my neck that knew my name. My name.. my name.. every room would take you deeper, further into the house into a new den or room with a nook you’ve never seen. Seen from the outside in a room on the second story that we suspected was the library was often a candle light, flickering between the nailed on two by fours and that’s what prompted this adventure to begin with. With all the muster and gall I approached the front door expecting the knob to resistingly wiggle with a lock but opening easily, the door swung in. In I stepped. Stepped through the door, stepped up the whispering stairs, stepped across the deep second floor carpet, stepped right up to another door, on the second story. A story, I told myself, as candle light flickered across the front of my shoes, just a story and nothing to worry. Worry is not enough to describe me as I swung open the door, the wailing shriek that was heard outside, the nail pulling yell of confusion and anger as a voice, maybe my voice, screeched “what is my name?!”