Kirk

Sanctuary: once the most holy of holy sacred places; now, just a haven – a place of safety, or at least a refuge – physical shelter that may or may not offer relief or comfort in this time of trouble.

You can see the hole in the roof and the ivy growing inside the tower. Yeah, it’s questionable physical and emotional shelter; especially when you consider the surroundings and the very real, unreal ghost or ghosts here in the cemetery.

There’s a whole section of the tower missing and one of the gables in back is missing a roof and section of wall as well. Inside, there are fallen ceiling tiles, crumbling floor sections, and graffiti defacing the once proud building. So, I guess you could say it’s a lot like me. I’m not whole either. I’m missing elements – a conscience, a heart, circuitry in the mind….

Maybe we need each other – this old kirk, or church, and I. We are very alike. I’ve built walls around my sacred self – the heart of me – and I’ve patched up fences that I had opened up to others who were unworthy of that trust. I’ve learned to keep others out to protect myself; and so, I’ve worked hard to create a façade that shows others what they’d expect to see – no missing parts, no dead areas, a seemingly whole shell.

But, inside… inside is dark, layered grimly by the years of neglect and very murky at the bottom of things. And, like the graffiti, I’ve been marked by other’s careless cruelty. We all hold that capacity to be cruel, to cause pain, to create havoc, and, to destroy. We are a collection of thoughts that we randomly act upon, often without thinking of the consequences. I’ve been there. I’m still there, I think. Only now, I’m seeing, and feeling, the results of being the one that caused a tragedy so great that I could only run from it – to distance myself from the act and the effect of it.

Are my heart and soul so stained, so embittered, so empty and lifeless as these ghosts around me and the place where I now dwell that I will never be whole, never be clean, never be filled with happiness? I can only hope a little light still burns within me.

Shall I be just another tombstone –a name, a date, a few words to mark that I existed once, as cold as only stone can be – and just a wispy apparition of who I once was or who I could have been?

Do we live only to die? Will we always be haunted by our actions, or lack of them, and those of others? I don’t know. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to think about it, … but I do. Inside me still is the child I once was and the one I could have been, but wasn’t. Inside is turmoil, constant turmoil.

(This is AlphaFen’s runaway renovation challenge.)

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Chapter one

Chapter two

Chapter three

Chapter four

Chapter five