House Hunting

On a lark ventured into the exclusive listing of self—many rooms, musty cellar, dusty attic, cobwebs everywhere, sheets thrown over ugly furniture, sullen portraits beyond living memory and dour landscapes crooked with time on papered walls, ghastly fixtures in need of upgrade, shelves lined with droppings of mice and volumes authored by no one in particular, paling words no longer used, moldering guest register from another boarding house, windows of hardened leaves and views out there unto primal scenery of fading twilit fields and hilltop burial grounds bordered by somber spruce, and beyond that the usual hideous obscurities—only to realize, oh well, this was the wrong address all along.