abandoned house - quotes and descriptions to inspire creative writing

Amid a fleet of steel gated homes, upon a jaguar street, there was one ‘gap-tooth’ dark. From smashed panes had billowed the soot of dragon’s breath, to scorch and stain the well mortared brick. Its front door, though double layered, was a smash of craters; steel toed boots no doubt. Then to cap it all was the graffiti conjured in chaotic swirls. And so though it should have been the twin of all the rest, no fires warmed it, no lights came on at twilight’s whisper, no soles beat its floors.

A smack of shutters rents the air, scattering shrapnel as mouldy seeds. The space where a door should be is three sides of blistered paint to frame the dank and rotting dark. Another season and all that’ll remain is an obstinance of once loved walls. As my hand makes contact with the bricks, a warmth sings loud and clear. For this place has taken in the summer sun as if it were one last prayer. Who will come? Will they come? For winter’s hand is near.

In that dreary place, behind panes of years encrusted grim, squatted a room of mean proportions. It was entirely bare, bereft of any comforting thing. As Alice stepped in, her form eaten by shadows, she spied a mug. It sat with only used syringes for company and was plastered with brown-smeared silver scales. Upon it scratched writing declared, “I’d rather be fishing.” Closer she edged, into the gloom, immersed in a wave of deathly stench. Within it, under a crest of mould, lurked a rusty slime. Her stomach lurched and she turned for the door, her spin smashing both mug and rotten guts against the indifferent wall.

It was one of those bottomless mugs, cold coffee drips long dried from rim to base. God only knows how long it had sat there, many seasons I’d guess. For what had been hairline fractures had been forced wide. Freeze, thaw, freeze, thaw, as if it were unloved and weathered concrete. Yet in this flowerless void of a room, in this colour-drained gloom, it was the only fragrance attempting to make the house a home.

"Come abandoned house," sang the birds with gaity that outshone even the summer blooms, "come and see we have made the perfect place for you!"

That abandoned house was a comeback story in the making. Perhaps there was a time when I passed it, expecting it to tumble, no more. After each round of weathering it remains resolute. The storms swirl around and it stands. And so instead of seeing its cracks as faults, I see its face blowing raspberries to the world. "I'm still here. I'm still here. I'm still here... Ha ha ha!" And so I bought it. I am it's co-conspirator in survival. Me and it. It and me. Onwards.

Abandoned house I reclaim you as your mother, for spirits can do such things. With me you are reborn, you will live and breath again. What was old will be renewed as humans heal and your outer hue will glow with the warmth of this bonny self confident love. When we are done, trust me, they will come, for all love a well and strong house to call home.

In that house I had abandoned, not for want of love, yet because I was driven to do so, my footsteps echoed once more. And in my absence the house had become more grand, as if it had begun to self-renovate. I spent that day exfoliating the walls, enhancing the beauty of that old place and marvelled at how it had grown so much in such a short time. In the place where it had once been old floor boards was a swimming pool, clear blue waters calm and still. I had returned at last.

The abandoned house held onto happy memories in its floorboards and walls, for there they were safe and brought warmth upon even the most wintry of days.

The abandoned house had learned to sing with the wind and lean into the sunshine, to let the birdsong echo within and appreciate the rhythm of quenching rain.

The abandoned house learned to stand taller, growing toward the sunshine as a tree after a storm might.

The abandoned house, after so much quiet and reflective time, had discovered the company of the trees and wildflowers that brought brightness right up to its doors and windows.

The spirit of the house had rescued itself by sleeping in the walls, by retreating into the welcoming wood away from the dust. It stayed there with the memories of its birth, of the hugs and laughter that once were its colours and music, for that is the way of spirits. So though the floors were bare and the paint was in need of loving care, though the furniture lay still without the warmth of its family, it stood all the same, strong beneath the flakes and dirt of years.

The house had become aware of itself, of the history that echoed within the walls. Somewhere within, mixed with the pain, were images of soft flowers. Yet, if inside felt stagnant, just as a river, it simply needed to flow. And so one day, after time unmeasured, the house opened each door and window. It shivered at first, for the wind felt cold and it was used to the dust and the odour of nothing. It was about to close, to find a way to love the isolation, to become one with the rats who crawled and the sticky spider webs, when in came the fragrance of soft flowers. The house shivered again, but in a different way, this time there was a small fragment of warmth, a tiny brave smile in the walls. There were days that old house did shut every door and window, times darkly shrunken from the world, hoping to be invisible. Yet, as the seasons changed, as Earth circled the sun, the doors and windows opened all the more. They say that the pain blew right out of that house a little at a time and the nature that house craved entered a little at time - the birdsong, blossom and sunshine.

The abandoned house stood in a composed way, as if it had chosen solitude for itself, as if residents were a luxury it could forgo. The floors had been a highly polished parquet, individual blocks lovingly placed and sanded to a smooth finish before the varnish was brushed on with fine bristles. The walls stood firm, the window frames strong, glass triple glazed and whole. All in all, it looked like a movie-set, a place waiting for life to come. The only give-away was the odour, well, that and the dust. It was musty and dry, but nothing opening the doors and windows couldn't solve. A spring clean, some fresh flowers, perhaps the house would enjoy the luxury of company.

The brightly painted door is half off its hinges, it's still shiny knocker dangling with gravity. The path is still perfect brickwork, the mortar holding back the weeds that have overtaken the neighbouring paths with ease. Usually that's a bad sign, if someone's taking care of the place I'm not going in. But the path like everything else about the house reeks of recent renovation. Nobody's been here in a while I'll bet, not for some weeks or more. So this time I'll let the kid pick the house, likely it's as good as any other. For some reason he's squirming so badly I can barely hold him. So once inside I let him down. If there was anyone here they'd have heard him and either come out fighting or else fled already...

The steps are old, unvarnished and slippery with the recent rain. I grab the rail with my free hand and we move up gingerly, and for the most part in silence. I take a stone and cast it through the broke window, if anyone's in there they'll startle. Nothing. Guess it's empty after all. I push on the door expecting it to swing open but it doesn't. Lucky for me Dad had us picking locks before we could pick our own noses. I take out a hair pin and a credit card and the door still doesn't move. Bolted from the inside. Now that is interesting, hence the broken windows I'll bet. Despite the kiddie carrier out front I'm gonna leave this one. Bolts drawn home from the inside don't bode well and I'm hardly in the best condition to fight with Darwin on my hip.