A single dim bulb struggles to suppress opportunistic shadow-crevices across a yellowed wall. It’s ancient and bare, seeming more to occasionally pulse then actually burn. The walls were up until very recently cookie-cutter white, the colors stolen from them by the encroaching night. Shadows claw for supremacy as evening comes, writhing and multiplying like the stars outside a Hollywood-window. Black holes appear where wall and ceiling meet in unholy matrimony, suckling away color and light as they gorge and grow. The soul of the ever-friendly wooden hand-rail is gone, conscripted to the dark side like a desperate man turning to crime, perverting every though of safety and comfort in it’s black shroud. Paintings line the wall, earth colors and themes likewise swallowed. A black and white picture of a grinning man stares down upon the seventh step, face marred halfway down in shadow, leaving only the leering look. Two milder spots in the black show the shadows of eyes, ever knowing, ever seeing. The outline of a fire-alarm can be made out, nestled between the corner and a painting. Wires hang out wishy-washy, and the screen is long dead. The glint of an entrepreneur spider’s web can gazed upon, connecting wire with shadow and seeming to spin gloom. The steps shoot harshly up, pausing to gather dust and impure thoughts, with a trick landing two thirds of the way through. Cracks weave their way up the last couple steps, leading to a landing full of safety. The whole thing is smothered by a faded carpet, cut roughly and riding up the wall, itchy stuff that clogs movement and limits thought. It’s full of a dust that only time can provide and none can take away.