Hauntings

I don't know why, but even (hand) writing my Winter Journal over last winter I didn't mention the fact that the house was haunted. With some hauntings a presence is felt, an awareness, perhaps even a consciousness, the idea that someone who lived or died here is somehow still here. This house has none of that. Instead it is haunted by shadows and reflections, glimpses, unexplained sounds. I look up two or three times a day having seen a shadow pass out of the corner of my eye, only for there to be nobody there. Shadows pass across the windows, as if somebody is walking past. I answer comments that only I heard. To maximise the evening sunlight, the back door is half glass and the two inner doors to the living room are also glass. Open these together and an endless pattern of reflection and movement is created. This is probably what makes the shadows slip through the house, but I like the idea of a house haunted by shadows and reflections, unexpected silences and unheard words.