The shattered rays of sunlight shine through to old boarded windows.  In the eerie half-light, every surface shimmers with a warm glow.  The kind of color you see looking through a pair of orange shades.  The living room is some sort of polygon.  Something with 5 sides, sort of in a pentagon shape.  The walls are plastered with wall paper long bleached by the sun.  The gray warped into a black-tan shade, the once red-maroon stripes now a sort of bloody-dirt color.  The air is thick with dust, swirling and twisting in the light.

     The stench of piss oozes out of the stains on the sofa and floor.  The outlines of their residence faded and aged but still visible, like old zit scars.  The plastic sheets on the furniture are dull and translucent with age.  The heat and humidity are mixing with the old bacteria to produce a smell that could turn the stomach of Chuck Norris.  Old milk, vomit, shit, sweat, sex and any other foul smell you imagine combined in the 96 degree weather to form a haze of funk that would turn elephant shit into roses.  Somehow, this smell catches you off-guard.  A smell like this would have to find it’s way outside somehow.  No way could you walk on the sidewalk and not smell this house.  Not here though.  Not this structure.  Not a house, but a residence of riddles.  The deeper you plunder, the more questions you have.

     In the corners of the room, the old wallpaper is peeling away, showing the old drywall underneath.  Near the back of the house you can hear the old, rusted pipes groan with wear and tear.  Water stains litter the ceiling where the shingles have been worn thin or non-existent.

     Walking down the hallway to the “kitchen,” I stop to peer out the window.  Still only my car in the driveway.  I hear the linoleum clack agains my shoes.  The bare kitchen, empty except for its old countertops.  A space gapping two sets of coutertops marks the ancient existence of a refrigerator.  On the adjacent wall, a similar gap where a matching oven surely sat.  All of the cupboard doors opened outward.  Every counter drawer torn off its hinges.