A Lovely Obsession

The quote “She was beautiful, but she was beautiful in the way a forest fire was beautiful: something to be admired from a distance, not up close.”

~Terry Pratchett

A Lovely Obsession

I first met her when I was a child. I spent hours listening to her, drinking in tales of the love’s and lives of people I would never know, but whose dna coursed through my veins.

As I grew older I planned summer and winter breaks to be with her. She had so many stories left to tell and I couldn’t bear the thought of missing a single one.

Eventually, age and time began to take their toll. Her frame had weakened, and the light faded from her face. I moved nearby to be closer to her and continued my daily visits until the dreadful day when her voice was silenced by greedy real estate developers.

They drained her lovely moat and took a wrecking ball to her beautiful face, crumbling centuries of brick and mortar into a heap of dust. I watched, tears flowing down my face, as they loaded her into monstrous trucks, and hauled her away to a quarry, in order to build a resort on her sprawling estate.

They thought they had removed every trace of her, but I knew better. She was rooted in this place.

The hotel had barely opened its doors when rumors of hauntings spread. Patrons stopped coming. Eventually the new owners shuttered the doors of the resort for good.

I was happy to see it fail. Finally, I had her all to myself. Once again, I spent my evenings wrapped in the shadows of her abandoned corridors. After all, she had more stories to tell, and I couldn’t bear the thought of missing a single one.

~kat

A short story for Mind Love Misery’s Menagerie Sunday Writing Prompt inspired by the quote and collage above.