People don’t understand why I wait at the last exit of the corn labyrinth. The labyrinth is in a weird place in the middle of Ohio. It isn’t technically a labyrinth; they just call it that because it sounds more mysterious. According to the British, a labyrinth has one path that leads to a center. A maze on the other hand, has multiple paths leading to multiple endings. I once suggested to my employers that they just call it a labyrinth-maze, but they thought that idea was stupid. The corn “labyrinth” rests deep in an orange and green forest near an old farm out on the edges of the world between a place called Ashville and a place called Circleville.

I was considering buying a mansion in Circleville. It was a pleasant white fixture of the neighborhood with neat grass and bushes and flower beds out front. There was even an ornamental wrought iron fence the colors of gray and green mixed together that held it all in.

The Realtor led me through the majestic front door and the inside of the home was a totally different story. There was a deep dark feeling about it and much of the décor was slathered in blood red. There was a fireplace on the main level with green tiles set into golden stonework. That was one of the nicest things about the place. There was a study set off from the main living room, circular, mostly empty and dim. There were empty bookshelves and dust and time-worn memories inside that room. There was also a lone chair with an elegant upholstery that sat in the middle of the room and pointed toward the windows.

The air inside the home seemed heavy to me, almost like a wet shirt strung over a line. The lighting was dark and opiate. The cranberry and gold drapes over the windows were mostly closed to keep out any prying eyes. The staircase to the upper level curved and was carpeted. It had fine wood finishes, a dark walnut perhaps, like other areas of the house. The upstairs was mostly like a square. A bedroom in each corner. A sitting area in the center. The master was larger and had a turret with a very pointy top that had been turned into a nice nook with a window looking out onto the tree-lined neighborhood. I imagined putting my writing desk there. The master also had its own bathroom, and there was another one out in the hall with one of those old claw-foot tubs. The lighting in that bathroom was a yellowish red. It needed fresh paint and a window, maybe even a skylight. And this may sound strange, but something inside that bathroom was alive in a dead way. I don’t know exactly what, but if I could put it into words, I would say “elevated.”

The Realtor (her name was Regina), and I went back downstairs. The kitchen was at the rear of the house. It was large with many uncurtained windows, so this room was much brighter than the rest. There was a large space in the center reserved for a table and chairs. The counter space between the gaps where the appliances would go was plentiful. The vinyl tops were a cosmic white with a blue trim. The cabinets were painted white, their doors squeaked when I opened them.  

The kitchen looked out pleasantly upon a good-sized yard with T-shaped poles in which to string a clothesline, and then an alleyway with trash cans lined up like military guards at their posts. Beyond that, was someone else’s yard and a big yellow house with a red roof. There was a woman outside there with shocked blonde hair, and she was just staring at us, but I didn’t understand how she could even see us.

One thing that harmed my decision about the house at first was when I followed Regina out the back kitchen door to look at the yard, the garage, the gravel driveway. She was talking up a storm and I was sort of drifting away from her words. I happened to look up at a window in one of the four bedrooms. And I know I saw it. I really believe it. But there was a human head in that window. And there were eyes that were staring down at me. Then there was a slow-forming and menacing smile. My heart thumped. I must have had a weird expression on my face because Regina bent her head and looked at me funny and said, “Are you all right, Mr. Jemison?”

“You can call me Alden. Mr. Jemison was my grandfather. Old Mr. Jemison indeed.” I turned away from the window. “I thought the house was vacant.”

She scrunched her face in further puzzlement. “It is vacant. Didn’t you see that it was?”

“No one else here?”

“No.”

I just stood there thinking about whether to say something to her. My tangled, hallucinating brain told me not to. “Right. I must have been thinking of someplace else.”

“I have shown you a lot of houses,” Regina said with a big, fake Realtor smile.

I looked up at the back of the house again. The windows were clear and clean. “But this one,” I said to her. “This one is different.”

She looked at me funny. I could tell she liked me. I can always tell when a woman likes me. I have a very strong intuition about things. The whole world should know that, as well as this: I’m just a writer trying to write in a world that doesn’t value words anymore. Instead, we speak in blurbs, shouts, grunts, violence, hate, noise, symbols, whining and idiotic posts on social media. I just want some peace and quiet in a big old house that might just have living memories walking around in it. I want to look out secret windows at the people strolling along the sidewalks, but I never want to talk to them. I want to sit on the couch and stare into space while things light up and float around me, and there’s strange music coming out of my hi-fi system.

She smiled. Her mouth lit up. “I have a feeling you like this place.”

“I do.”

“May I ask you something, and I’m not meaning to be rude.”

“I’m intrigued.”

“It’s just that I haven’t seen you at any of the Orange Masses.”

“I don’t like to go to those things,” I said.

She looked confused. “But, what if they find out?”

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