Datura #10 | 01_2021
Vacant by David Thomas Peacock Can you see them? Over there, in the third-floor window on the right. Wait, I’ll make it darker. Bending over, you blew out the candles. With no electricity in this squat, after dark, there weren’t many options for light. See them now? My knees hurt as I knelt on the floor. You were to my right, just
behind
cigarette
me,
breath
hand on
on my
my neck
shoulder. as
we
I
both
could
feel
looked
out
your the
warm dirty
window. Across the overgrown yard stood an old ramshackle threestory house that hadn’t been occupied for at least fifteen years. We were on the second floor of a dilapidated carriage house that sat across from it on the same property. You thought it was an excellent place to live, what with it being abandoned and all. Rent-free! You had said. I couldn’t tell if you were smiling or grimacing. Looking over at the windows on the third floor of the main house, most were cracked and broken. It was a full moon on a hot and humid summer night in the south; the whole scene was lit up like
those
old
day-for-night
black
and
white
photographs.
I
thought something moved in the window but couldn’t be sure. As I started to speak, you squeezed my arm hard. Shhh — be quiet, they’ll hear. You thought there were spirits in the windows late at night, and I wanted to believe you. It was one of those drug-filled summers I wandered through as a teenager, wondering who I was. You were my older sister — I already knew you were insane, but we had been, and forever would be, inextricably intertwined. I loved you from a remote place that kept me protected but was afraid of the crazy in both of us, so I 32