A stillness hung in the entryway, with a dusty, unlit chandelier above. A raised coffin, piled high with linens stood in the center on the well worn red rug. The runner ran from the front door, and back down the hallway, receding into darkness. I recognized this place, this house. Further down the hallway was the kitchen and a living room of some kind from another place, another dream.

To my left was a different hallway I’d never explored before. It was lit by light streaming in through open windows in each of the rooms. The back wall of the hallway was filled with sliding closet cupboards and hardwood.

A man had died, but he was only a boy. My parents were gathering linens to wrap his body in and lay him on top of this coffin-like canoe so he could be moved. Two layers down, was a tapestry-style woven blanket with Transformers on it. Old and faded, it had raised reliefs of the robot faces cut from longer wool, the edge in blue and white. “You can’t lay a body on this.” I said and pulled it off, scrolling the blanket for myself. The man’s body was placed on the blankets, and wrapped lightly by my mother. She and my father waited for someone to arrive, and I walked off down the hallway.

In the first of three rooms, light streamed in on two bunk bends, and toys littered every shelf and surface. Small Lego buildings and figures stood silently on shelves with their dog-eared, faded boxes behind them “Only at K-Mart!” many exclaimed. Old Transformer figures laid in toy bins, and on shelves.
The man had been autistic, but with the mind of a child. He had lived in this place with his family for thirty or forty years, and this had been his playroom. The whole house was abandoned now, as that man had no heirs or other family. 

I searched through the room, excited to explore what was. It felt okay to collect these objects, as their owner had since moved on. The light outside had changed, and the sun was setting. The walls dimmed, and mildew grew, as if the house had stood unattended for years in a day. 

* * *

In the hallway, the body was gone, as were my parents. I walked along the hallway, and heard noise at the far end of the hall. I glanced into the 2^nd room that contained a children’s style bed and nightstands, and entered the large wooden door beside it – locking it behind me.

It was a room the size of my father’s old classrooms at Sacred Heart elementary school – tall ceiling, rectangular. This one had carpet, and was filled with sofas lining the room, and a large television on the right wall. Beside the television were inset cabinets and a door. Pressing the cabinets allowed runners to slide out – each contained hanging newspapers, ‘Cracked’ and ‘People’ magazines, among many others. I walked up the 4-steps leading to a room behind the television wall to find a bathroom/kitchenette. Dirty dishes lay unwashed in sinks long abandoned. I opened the cupboards, finding only bandages, Listerine, and various cups and plates. I exited the second set of four stairs leading back into the room.

It was night now, and no light shone through the windows. Suburban streetlights cast their eerie glow through the curtains, striping shadows across the dusty furniture. More noise from the hallway, sending a jolt of alarm through my mind. I exit the hallway, and examine the far wall’s closet cupboards, but they’re empty inside, just like the hallway. I return to the toy room, and open a small plastic drawer on top of a cabinet. It contains meticulously organized accessories for old Transformer toys. I begin to pick these up to bring with me, away from this place. More noise in the hallway, this time closer.

I exit the playroom to find a group of 5 people rushing down the hallway. One woman carries two old-style wood/metal school chairs. The others have backs and backpacks full of stolen objects. One man with dirty long brown hair and a beard stops, and slams me into the wall with both hands against my shoulders. “These are MY ruins now, what’re you doing here?” he demands. “Who cares man? Just let it be – we got what we wanted, let’s go” one of the other men says. I start to explain that I knew the man who lived here, but I realize that was a long time ago. The walls are rotted and water damaged now, and the carpet is thick with bootprints. Time has passed while I explored, but not at its normal rate.

The group of scavengers moves off, and out the front door into the long night. The raised relief blanket, with its Optimus Prime robot face on it still lays scrolled up against the wall. Holding it, I sit on the raised stoop in front of the hallway closets and wonder where I belong.