this one is mine. or i've inherited it.
it is huge and has four wide, deep floors.
i am laying down in the bottom one and notice that someone has either tried to cut around the fan above my head, or it's simply slipped but it is detaching from the ceiling precariously. someone has been there.
i go to the second floor and am shocked to find that the enormous, beautiful six foot round cut crystal chandelier has fallen from the third floor ceiling through the second floor floor and almost through the first floor ceiling. (some weird insulation takes up the difference).
i go up to the fourth floor and caution my mother who is there, bringing in groceries into that level which, oddly, for only her, leads out directly to the leaf-blown street. I tell her to be careful. Just after she walks over it without worry, the floor detaches and flies up like an enormous piece of paper, still attached, barely under my feet.
it had been such a grand house at some time.
but all the parties had weakened the structure.
there are footprints even - pressed into the floor from all the dancing.
now it's mine:
a total money pit, with only references to its past livability, functionality, grandure and grace, in need of expensive, labor-intensive, radical overhaul.
It's much too much for me: it's dangerous, about to pancake in around us, and it's my property now.
