Haunted Houses

As I ventured out in curious wanderlust at the twinkling lights, manmade and an orange hue, and walked into an old factory, done up in the stylings we recognize as what Hollywood and history books tell us is the late 19th century, and the red water and fake chainsaws circle around us, my mind being to wander as it often does. A part of us lives that fear rush, that moment where the illusion of control has melted away, and we are caught in the grasp of this horrible world, though done in make up and tattered clothes. And I think in some part of that moment, maybe the curtains are pulled back, red velvet with golden chords sinking away, and we see life as it really is, small and not in our control.

And these haunted houses we visited, to feel this way, to walk around and hold arms and hands with each other, they aren't the real hauntings. No, just a shade of some pale forms and disfigured beings, really just us without our masks on. It's funny, really. We put masks on to hide our real selves, when, really, the whole time the mask we put on is really the person we really are, ugly, sad, hurt, lost, bleeding. Reverse engineering by Halloween mask designers. Become who you really are, put a mask over your mask. Ingenius.

No, the real haunted houses are the ones that we live in, the ones with the ghosts in the closet, waiting, hiding there, memories of hurt and hopelessness, forever etched into the halls and walls of our hiding places. These haunted houses are where the monsters live, where the devil plays cards at, where urban legends cook dinner for the kids. Skeletons are buried in the backyard, mean words are spoken that can never be taken back, feelings are hurt forever, and the fears that we all hide and have are brought out from under the covers and displayed on the big screen tv in the living room. We should be afraid of those places, more so than the ones we construct to strike fear.

And somewhere, in all those black chambers and strobe lights we keep, there is hope, there is the end of the tunnel. And somehow those ghosts we keep will fade away, like childhood imagination, if we just face up to them and fear not. Just know that they will pass through you, they are translucent, they are clear. They are lies, white and black, and dead all over.