My destiny came into sight as the doors swung open at last.
Rich, cherry panels lined the endless foyer, broken only by the delicate glass lamps in their bronze fixtures and the most elegant oil painting of a ship heaving on the stormy ocean waves. A chime screamed the hour somewhere in the distance, and my thoughts receded to that oldest of opening lines:
"It was a dark and stormy night..."
"Or it will be soon," said the man behind me. He threw my luggage on the deck and turned back to his car. "You'll excuse me if I don't feel like stepping into the Murder House for a cuppa tea, yeah?"
I offered him no pardon, and he didn't wait for one. A moment later, I was alone again.
I dragged my chest of clothes through the entry and left them beneath the ship. Some staff must have stayed to light the lamps, and I suspected they would also carry my things to whichever chamber they deemed safest against the frigid draft I could already feel pouring down the hallway. I took a swig and tucked the flask of bourbon back into my pocket before hefting up the typewriter case and trudging towards the growing song of ticking clocks in the rear.
The fifth door on the right opened on my grandfather's office. I paused over the bare space before the roaring fire, where I knew a beautiful rug once lay. An enormous desk would bear the weight of my writing machine, and the liquor cabinet wedged between the bookshelves behind it would bear the weight of my guilt. The sound of clacking keys soon melted into the clockwork orchestra mounted on the walls, and I could almost feel the chains slipping off my wrists as warming inspiration spilled out onto the paper.
It's so difficult to find a unique voice in the true crime genre. I suppose all I needed was a change of perspective.
Rich, cherry panels lined the endless foyer, broken only by the delicate glass lamps in their bronze fixtures and the most elegant oil painting of a ship heaving on the stormy ocean waves. A chime screamed the hour somewhere in the distance, and my thoughts receded to that oldest of opening lines:
"It was a dark and stormy night..."
"Or it will be soon," said the man behind me. He threw my luggage on the deck and turned back to his car. "You'll excuse me if I don't feel like stepping into the Murder House for a cuppa tea, yeah?"
I offered him no pardon, and he didn't wait for one. A moment later, I was alone again.
I dragged my chest of clothes through the entry and left them beneath the ship. Some staff must have stayed to light the lamps, and I suspected they would also carry my things to whichever chamber they deemed safest against the frigid draft I could already feel pouring down the hallway. I took a swig and tucked the flask of bourbon back into my pocket before hefting up the typewriter case and trudging towards the growing song of ticking clocks in the rear.
The fifth door on the right opened on my grandfather's office. I paused over the bare space before the roaring fire, where I knew a beautiful rug once lay. An enormous desk would bear the weight of my writing machine, and the liquor cabinet wedged between the bookshelves behind it would bear the weight of my guilt. The sound of clacking keys soon melted into the clockwork orchestra mounted on the walls, and I could almost feel the chains slipping off my wrists as warming inspiration spilled out onto the paper.
It's so difficult to find a unique voice in the true crime genre. I suppose all I needed was a change of perspective.
