Copyright Sandra Crook
By nightfall, a small crowd had gathered, familiar faces from the past.
We stared in silence, remembering a time. The ruined house had been a sanctuary, a meeting place, somewhere to play, to dream, to act out our ghostly fantasies. Long after it was declared unsafe, kids had still gathered there, though probably for less innocent purposes.
We stayed awhile.
Afterwards, I learned that others also watched their childhood being played out on the crumbling facade that night – like a final film show, a tribute to a generation.
When the bulldozers arrived next morning, the house was just smoldering ashes.
Thanks to Rochelle for choosing one of my pics for the Friday Fictioneer’s photo this week. It’s a local landmark, the former Pier Head Cafe and Tea Gardens. It’s a graphic example of Trompe L’Oeil, if you hadn’t already noticed. For a more detailed (and professional) look at the artwork by Purbeck artists Antonia Phillips and Nina Camplin, click on the following link: https://www.flickr.com/photos/alwyn_ladell/sets/72157648463792835/
castelsarrasin 
We all had a building like this. Thanks for reminding me, Sandra
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Yes, the building where I played out my fantasies was an old farmhouse, now nestled beneath several hundred tons of rubble and a housing estate. Thanks for reading.
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Old buildings always seem full of memories, a few can make ones hair curl. Like your story this week.
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Thanks, Michael. I think even if there isn’t a ghost attached, most kids invent one. 🙂
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This really brings back memories. I liked the way the people who’d made (good?) use of the building took it upon themselves to kill it off before the demolition team did.
Thank you for pointing out the trompe l’oeil factor; I hadn’t spotted it (and I went to Specsavers!). It’s so skilfully executed and an imaginative way to try to stimulate action (although a shame if it hasn’t worked).
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Perhaps the building itself (or the ghosts of some of its former users) decided to engineer its demise, rather than wait for the bulldozers. The Trompe L’Oeil is indeed a work of art. Full credit to the two artists.
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…Mine was a derelict brick works. Ah, nostalgia!
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Wonderful artwork – had me fooled! So many of our memories are tied up in places and buildings – and as we get older more and more of them change or disappear. C’est la vie!
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It’s strange, watching the places of our childhood slowly slip away.
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There are so many memories attached, Sandra.
Bulldozers and their masters can never understand that…
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Just another job, I guess. Thanks for reading.
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The death of house is a sad thing indeed. This story beautifully captures that melancholy.
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Thanks for reading. 🙂
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I can feel their sense of loss.
Beautifully written, as always.
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Thanks, Moon.
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Dear Sandra,
You’ve written a real memory jogger. I can think of places that meant a lot now bulldozed in the name of progress.
I’ll admit I didn’t catch the Trompe L’Oeil. People who can pull that off amaze me.
Well written piece as always.
Shalom,
Rochelle
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I didn’t catch the entirety of it when I first saw the building. And I certainly didn’t know about Edmund Hopper’s Nighthawks, as Penny Gadd pointed out. I had to google it. Thanks for reading Rochelle.
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Your usual quality production, Sandra, with something darker underneath, I think.
Great photo.
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There’s almost always something a little darker underneath. Bwah-ha-ha. 😦 Lovely to see you again this week.
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Loved this story, Sandra. I think a lot of have been there… seen the destruction of icons from our childhood.
Susan A Eames at
Travel, Fiction and Photos
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Oops – that should have said: I think a lot of US have been there…
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I agree. Thanks for visiting Susan.
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Fantastic photo this week Sandra. Full of nostalgia. It’s a sad thing to see a memory raised to the ground.
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I’ll be sad to see the back of this one, particularly if they replace it with a block of luxury apartments, as I heard they might. Thanks for reading.
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Oh, nicely done, jarring so many memories for your readers and your characters.
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Thanks Alicia. Glad you liked it.
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‘Others saw their childhoods played out on the crumbling walls’ – made me wonder if there were real ghosts there too that night.
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Someone set the fire… 🙂
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Excellent story.
“Afterwards, I learned that others also watched their childhood being played out on the crumbling facade that night – like a final film show, a tribute to a generation.” This seemed very dark to me, hinting that the building was torched as an act of revenge, or possibly cleansing for unspeakable acts. But maybe I’m reading too much into it…
Thank you for the link to the trompe l’oeil pictures. I fell about laughing when I realised that the Tea Room is a direct pastiche of ‘Nighthawks’ by Edward Hopper!
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Thanks for the heads up on that piece of artwork Penny. I didn’t know about that and I’ve googled it. I like your interpretation too – there’s a fair amount of mileage in that…
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The wrecking ball and bulldozer always comes for our memories.
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And they take them…
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Childhood memories of old, dangerous places, we all have them. Mine usually have a big, dangerous dog too. Good one, Sandra.
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There’s a witch in mine… 🙂 Thanks for visiting, Jane.
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Witches didn’t figure in my panoply of bogies when I was a child. Maybe because we were taught at school that witches were just poor women who were picked on out of ignorance or spite. Big dogs though, they were real…
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If only piles of rubble could talk. – the tales they could tell.
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Perhaps that’s why they’ve been silenced… 😦
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Love this.. all the stories an old building can tell… I do remember a song in Swedish about this, and that one is now playing in the back of my head. I think it’s a translation from This Old House
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Oh dear, I remember that too.
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Ah! They call that progress. There is this old house in a suburb near work that has had a sudden explosion of apartment building due to it’s proximity to the CBD. It is surrounded by apartment blocks and the news reports are that the old lady has refused to sell to builders. Like a symbol of protest it keeps standing, I just wonder how long the person who inherits it will keep it.
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Good for her! I don’t suppose she enjoys living there much now, though.
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It’s always difficult to see the changes the world makes to childhood. In our old house we had this beautiful old willow tree. My family moved out of it long ago and the tree is gone. It just doesn’t like like my home anymore. I read your story and think wistfully about years gone by.
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The house where I was born had a beautiful cherry blossom tree outside the bedroom window. There’s a car up on blocks there now. 😦 Thanks for visiting.
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this reminds me of my father’s ancestral home. as a kid, i spent many happy memories there with my cousins. sadly, it’s been torn down to build a new one.
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Thanks for visiting. 🙂
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I really enjoyed this tale of childhood memories.
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Thanks Christine.
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Awwe, there’s something so heart-breaking about a local landmark being demolished. There are so many memories associated with them, and sometimes, some of those memories get hurt too in the process.
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That’s so true.
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We had a creepy, rundown house across the road from us when I was very young – grubby net curtains, crumbling woodwork. We used to sneal in the overgrown back garden, investigating – I remember finding a gravy boat there once, though I didn’t know what it was at the time! Lovely homage to youth and an adventure long past and thank you for sharing the link – I honestly didn’t see the trompe l’oeil in the original. Loved the tribute to Hopper’s Night Hawks. Lovely Sandra
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Yes, that was new to me, the Night Hawk thing. Congrats but tough luck about the Writers’ Bureau competition. Looks like you had a near miss there, but at least they didn’t print it after awarding Highly Commended. That really irritates me when a story gets used up for no gain. Have you tried Flash500?
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Thank you Sandra! Never imagined anyone would see that – did you enter too? Stupidly, I was disappointed with a shortlisting as I was very happy with the story. I have been trying to find another home for it, so thank you for the tip – have you had experience of Flash 500 yourself. Looks like a good competition. Thanks again and again, a lovely story this week
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Yes, I won back in 2015 – here’s a link, if it works. http://www.flash500.com/index_files/wfq2015.html They do a 40 strong long list, then I think 20 strong shortlist, so you can work out how good your story is.
They’ve also got a short story comp (3000 words I think) which closes in Feb. I’ve nothing yet for that, but I won both first and second once one year. That was just about the end of my luck! I entered a couple of F500 shortlisters into the WB one, but got nowhere. Good luck!
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That’s a great story, Sandra – I’m not surprised you won. The plot is strong and drives on, leaving us breadcrumbs of information along the way until we know exactly why she doesn’t call an ambulance and that last reaction from the police officer (foreshadowed earlier on) is perfect.
Thanks so much for the link – I’ll give them a go 🙂
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That’s nostalgic!
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Thank you, Lata.
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It seems a shame that such history is reduced to ashes. It probably wasn’t all that safe to be in, mind.
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I agree. 🙂
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You hit a home run with this one. We all have such a place. Mine was an old log barn.
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Mine was an old farmhouse, which is beneath land-fill now. 😦
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A lot of memories played out here Sandra. So very well told and that firey last line. Sad but glad they got to control the end
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Thanks for reading, Laurie.
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I think I am the opposite. I have no attachment to places or buildings 🙂
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I certainly have no desire to return to my hometown. That’s for sure. Thanks for reading.
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what? a Trompe L’Oeil, well now it fits my secret eatery even better.
🙂
and in your piece – I felt the tug of how we felt visiting the land a large family home used to sit upon.
so great job with developing the loss felt –
and love how that single line was placed by itslef:
“We stayed awhile.”
gosh – such a nice pause and evocative feeling in only 100 words
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Thanks for reading. 🙂
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🙂
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This reminds me of a rented terraced house I shared with some friends in my twenties. We loved the place and we had a really cool landlord (an antique dealer) who refused to bend to the demolition order imposed on the place. In the end there was just us, an Italian family next door on one side and squatters on the other, holding out against the developers who wanted the land. When I returned to the town several years later, the houses had gone (plus the antique dealer’s shop in the road behind, too) and had been replaced by loads of glossy new offices. They might have looked posh, but they sure didn’t have any character to them.
Thanks for this week’s photo prompt.
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Glad it stirred some memories for you.
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Change is sad for each of us when it tampers with his past. Symbolism has quite an impact upon people.
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It would seem so. Thanks for reading.
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And someone will scream “Arson” when all they did was take down a house that was gonna be taken down anyway….lol
mine:
https://kindredspirit23.wordpress.com/2018/01/26/a-whimsical-tale/
Scott
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Memories and change. We hate seeing parts of our childhood destroyed. Thanks for this weeks prompt.
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My pleasure, Irene.
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It sounds as though some watching had extremely unpleasant memories of the place and wanted it thoroughly destroyed. Thanks for the picture and explanation of it, Sandra. Great writing as usual. 🙂 — Suzanne
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My pleasure, Suzanne.
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Melancholic and nostalgic, Sandra. Change can be hard to witness.
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I think you’re right, Fatima. Thanks for reading.
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We go through this constantly here in our small town as people fight over history and modernization. It’s amazing how memories are sometimes a stronger commodity than dollars and sense.
Pun intended.
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I suspect it’s known as “progress”. But what about us the people?
Thanks for the prompt.
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I find myself wondering if this is a ghost story. It’s very haunted and hints at so much beneath the surface. Well done.
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Reminded me of our childhood house, a place where enjoyed every bit of time spent there. Now not at all recognizable. Thanks for this wonderful piece.
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