I crept up shaded concrete stairs, crunching pine needles and cabbage-tree fronds. I pushed the pamphlet through the letter-drop of the heavy wooden door. It glided onto a pile of unread paper.
The sides of the house oozed yellowed foam from spreading cracks. I touched it. It was petrified to a meringue consistency. I gazed sadly up at the black polythene-draped windows and realised it was pointless delivering the Sumner Community Group newsletter there at all.
Was this to be the modern-day haunted house?
Come to think of it, there had been no sign of my neighbours at the corner of the drive for ages, nor the old man across the road. I used to walk past them chatting together with their dogs.
Today was serenely still and sunny. The views were perfect as I dutifully visited all the letterboxes at the top if the hill. It was very nice of the council to give us sky-blue and sea-turquoise port-a-loos, I mused. They sort of blended...in a post-quake kind of way.
Easter Sunday on Clifton was usually humming with visiting relatives and site-seers in sportcars. But not today. I only spoke to two people. No one was around. It looked like a dwelling emergency ward. Bandaged, broken, crumbled, cracked - deserted.
However, my aloneness was jolted when glancing downwind to a fully intact house. A guy walked into his open doorway COMPLETELY naked - Mr April-style - albeit a newspaper critically positioned. And just STOOD there. It looked as though he had come to check out the unusual sign of life. Either that or he was an exhibitionist who was craving an audience. I rescued my third potential tumble into cracked asphalt, focused on the (sea) view and scurried on my way.
Until tomorrow,
Word Bird (with sore thigh muscles)
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