The Zombie Cottage (Viewing of the Field)

You grew up in haunted houses. You thought everybody did. Ghosts were a fact. Your mother saw them. Or wished she did. They lived in various rooms throughout the house. They waited on the stairs at night. As you tiptoed from your room, they lumbered from their den on the fifth stair, shrouded, sad. Were they to have grabbed you, you would have known the full extent of what it means to be unhappy, even at your young age. Their sadness might have tainted you for the rest of your life.

You hid in your room, under the covers, thirsty, whispering to your sister. She felt it too. The hairs on your forearms touched as you clung together.  Mum, you whispered, without trying to waken her. This was a game. Ghosts were the familial glue you brought with you from house to house.

Once when you are ten years old, your parents drive you to a field in the middle of nowhere.  Under the shadow of a purple hillside, the gable wall of a zombie cottage breathes its last breath.

You climb out of the car. The dying twilight points a bony digit at the torso of a water pump.  A breeze moans through rubble where a window would have stood. Somewhere in the distance a cow lows.

Your mother glances at your father. “He said we could build whatever we want on this plot,” she says.

Your father raises an eyebrow. His closed lips curl into a smile. You think that’s a good sign. He’s humoring her. You mother has a vision, but there’s no way.  A hand pump in a field is a step too far, even for your father.

Your parents take one more step but only one. There’s nothing else to see. It’s a field. You didn’t need to leave the city to see a field.

“A caravan would do until -” But it’s suddenly night.  The pleading look in your mother’s eyes is chastened into silence.

Dear God, you say to yourself.

You stumble as a unit back to the road.

As the car starts on the second try, you tuck your hands under your legs. You only hope the zombie cottage has not caught a whiff of your mother’s perfume. When you dare to glance back, you can see the the house still rooted there. The water pump paws at the seed of your mother’s dreams, stamping them down into the earth.

Photo by @nanetteblouson (Instagram)

During the early 1980s, we called many derelict houses "home" by choice.  They were places of exploration, curiosity, excitement, opportunity.  My parents signed readily for the chance to own and renovate these haunted shells. As soon as they had transformed them into solid fortresses, they packed our bags and moved on to work on the next shack, and the next one, and the next one.  As children, we learned the different ways a naked bulb casts shadows on a wall.  We knew the right way to walk barefoot on dusty floorboards, how to crawl onto a mattress on the floor, and fall asleep while being watched by the stars through a hole in the roof. As an adult I found it difficult to settle, never feeling comfortable around stability, never really feeling safe.  Almost 40 years later, I'm still working on cutting down the thicket of my mother's dreams.  Still killing zombies in my sleep.

Nina Couser