Day Thirty Five: Decay Island

As we drifted toward the island my cousin remarked, 'maybe that house is haunted'.

I hadn't noticed it. I was too busy rowing, trying not to get wet. The canoe rocked uneasy in the wake of passing motorboats. But we landed dry. Me and my three cousins trekked into the woods, trying to find the almost hidden house shrouded in age and encircled in fallen trees. The house was abandoned as we anticipated and we stepped inside.

It was a Thoreau-esque cabin, completely stripped of all but dusty light fixtures and the fireplace. The housing style was a 1950's nightmare, almost every window cracked or shattered, leaves and wasp nests in every corner. The oval refrigerator sunk into the darkness. A broken mirror, seven years of bad luck echoed in the reflections. Decay in the stale air.

Maybe the house was haunted, just not by the dead. Maybe dreams. Maybe memories.

We smashed a few windows, the pure ones that were untouched. We shattered the lightbulbs and beer bottles littering the living room. On the other end of the island was another cabin in even worse repair. We broke the windowframes and tossed the wood into the lake. Bent the doorknobs until they hung listless.

We're boys. Why not? It was fun, but maybe you had to be there to enjoy the destruction.

You know that saying, "leave only footprints, take only photographs"? Fuck that. I want to burn the whole island down.