The old yellow house

A few nights ago, when I was walking home in the freezing dark of December, I passed by a gate in a wall, that was all too familiar to me. I stopped. I opened the gate and walked in, heading for the big field that opened up behind a few bushes. There used to be a big yellow house here - in between trees and gardens. Big, old trees with wide branches and walled gardens with beautiful, secret corners. The house had many rooms and when I was living in it, I never managed to inhabit all of them properly. It used to look majestic and everyone admired it, when they walked past, but unfortunately it wasn't built on good foundations and was always at risk of crumbling away. Now I think: maybe it looked better than it actually was, but had a great time staying there and didn't think too much about it till towards the end.
While I lived there, although I loved living in it, I always felt that I was going to move out at some point and as time went on, that feeling made it more and more uncomfortable for me to live in it. There was something about the house that wasn't quite right and it had something to do with knowing that it wasn't going to stand forever and was going to come down.
So one day, not so long a go, I did move out. The house was torn down. Now there's just an empty field there with nothing but a few big stones still lying in it.
Ever since I moved out, I just walked past it, with not too heavy a heart because I had always been aware of the inevitability of its eventual fall. But that night I stopped and walked through the gate, onto the frozen grass. There was a room in the middle of the field. The door was open. I watched my white breath in the icy air, hesitated for a bit, then walked in.

It was one of the rooms that I had loved most in the house and it was just there - in all its beauty - everything exactly as it was when I still lived in the house. But that was not it - not only was the room as it had always been, but when you looked out of the windows, you could see the rest of the house. The yellow walls and reddish brown, moss-covered slate roofs were bathing in warm sunlight and everything was as if I'd never moved out. Well, everything except the fact that I knew it was an illusion, a temporary pleasure. I knew I could probably live there for a while, but nonetheless it wasn't real. As much as I wished to ignore it: I knew once I stepped out of that door, I'd be in the cold night again, standing of frozen grass in an empty field. So I stayed for a while and enjoyed my stay, enjoyed the strange familiarity, in fact: the exact likeness of it to how it used to be, but I eventually left, when the first sun rays made the harsh coldness seem less hostile. I stepped on the grass, closed my coat and walked home.
The next few days I didn't spend too much time thinking about it and just got on with my daily business. But today, after class, I walked past there again and in the middle of the field I could see the room again - the door was open, warm light streamed out of it and I heard music (maybe my records) playing on the old 60s record player. I opened the gate and walked onto the field, circling around the room. I was so drawn to it and wanted to step inside, but I knew there was no point. I had to pull myself away from it and drag myself off the field back to the gate. It was somewhat of a struggle, but I knew it was the right thing to do.


I don't go there anymore.