Really alone

I still have nightmares about this place and its unfinished projects. Its unattended responsibilities.

When I return to the house on Ranchitos Road, it’s always night and the lamps don’t quite reach into the shadowy corners. I assess what’s left out of half-packed boxes. Fish tanks with the water mostly evaporated contain a few feisty fish left to pick at the rotting flesh of their tank mates. Maybe there’s a dog in the yard, chained to the ground and shaking with excitement to see me. Sometimes, her paw is severed. Sometimes, she’s just dusty and hungry. I hug her, and I promise to come back for her, but for an unknown reason, I can’t take her now. I can’t fix the problems. I can’t pack the boxes, or clean out the trash, or open the fish tank lid. I know I can’t keep my promise to save her, and I feel guilty.

I have a sense that I have come from very far to deal with the refuse of my family’s life- the neglected things left behind when our normal collapsed- and that I don’t know where to start. I don’t have the tools. I don’t have the time. There’s not a soul in the world to help me figure it out or lift the boxes. It’s more dark than light. I can’t see clearly.

Sometimes, I can hear a TV in the other room.

Always, I get the sense that someone is watching me.

It feels like the ghosts have won. They’ve run us off and taken over the house, and I am now an invader surrounded by my dead family’s things. Things that were mine long ago when I was a different person, with a different life, a…