<![CDATA[
<body background="graphics/background.gif" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000" link="#990000" vlink="#666666" alink="#FFFFFF">
<p><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="724">
<tr>
<td width="488"><font face="Georgia" size="2"><table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="2" width="468">
<tr>
<td align="LEFT" width="1" rowspan="3" valign="BOTTOM"><font face="Georgia" size="2" color="#CCCCCC">..</font></td>
<td align="CENTER" valign="MIDDLE"><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="440">
<tr>
<td align="CENTER" valign="TOP"><b><font face="Georgia" size="5"><img src="graphics/onthedottedline.gif"></font></b></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="LEFT"><b><font face="Georgia">The Particle House</font></b></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="RIGHT"><b><font face="Georgia"><a href="bios_m2z.shtml#Renault" title="click for author info">Alexander Renault</a></font></b></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="CENTER"><b><font face="Georgia" size="5"><img src="graphics/onthedottedline.gif"></font></b></td>
</tr>
</table>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="LEFT" valign="TOP">
<p><i><font face="Georgia" size="2">Daylight, full of small dancing particles <br>
And the one great turning, our souls <br>
Are dancing with you, without feet, they dance. <br>
Can you see them when I whisper in your ear? <br>
Rumi, c. 1250</font></i></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">The house down on Kingston Road is full of ghosts. It is a quaint
old dwelling in what is now a quiet upper-middle class section
just outside the city. It has dark red shutters, three gables,
and a white fence around the front yard. Trees line the back.
There sits an angry squirrel on the grass beneath a bird feeder
rigged with a metal cone that prevents him from burglarizing the
coffers. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">The street is paved now. For many years there was a dirt road
that only knew horses and the pitter-patter of bare feet. The
swing on the front porch, the one that creaks when you sit on
it, is made of old wood, from a tree planted by the man who designed
and built the house. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">If you are lucky enough to have a key for so old a lock, the slightly
musty smell will hit you as soon as you walk through the door.
During daylight when it is clear, you would probably first notice
the lighting if the shades are open. On a bright afternoon, North
Carolina attracts the sun like a black hole and the house becomes
filled with dusty rays. These particles, float in the air like
swirling atoms. When someone or something is moving within the
house, or a hard breeze rattles around the edges of a loose window,
the dust moves through the air, suspended as the house exhales.
</font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Debris can hold secrets. Hearing the chiming of the old clock,
you cannot imagine all things in the universe happening at once.
The illusion of time is simply a way for our consciousness to
experience reality one piece at a time so our minds can process
all the information. The senses flood the brain as a way of maintaining
the body but any Buddhist would say that we all live in a constant
now. The house knows this better than we do. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Thousands of nights have been slept through in this place. Various
owners, their families and friends, the occasional interloper
between the transfer of deeds from one person to the next, all
cast their spell. At times the rooms have echoed the sounds of
painful childbirth, the clunk of a falling drunkard, the moans
and gasps of teenagers learning how to pleasure one another for
the first time. The painful, thrilling pop of the cherry, the
virginal blood, the mad pumping to a rhythm only the cock and
the house itself understand. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2"> * * *</font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">One beautiful Carolina summer day, not long after construction
of ther railroad began, the lady of the house, Elizabeth, was
murdered. No person ever learned the details since William, the
man of the house, also had his life dramatically cut short by
the long arm of Lady Justice. Many would speculate that Elizabeth
was probably killed in her own house by the man who promised to
love her forever, but only the house on Kingston Road knows the
truth. No one ever died of something other than natural causes
within its walls, as it accompanied each beyond the threshold..
Love may have died, or trust, or perhaps even the will to live,
but no one’s heart stopped beating while held in its shelter that
was not meant to be silenced. </font></p>
<p><i><font face="Georgia" size="2">I love your thighs, so brilliant against my hand. The whisper
of your mouth in my ear, your lips against mine, the rapid hunger
of your tongue upon me…</font></i><font face="Georgia" size="2"> </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">William found the letter hidden in a secret panel on the side
of his wife’s jewelry case. He was reaching for her hairbrush
(if you could ask him later why he was doing that he would not
recall) when the cuff of his shirt caught the edge. It fell to
the hardwood floor with a crash and while he cleaned up his mess
he found the side panel loosened with the edge of an envelope
poking through. For some reason he tugged at the corner and the
paper slipped from the box. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">He felt heat building in his head and his eyes hurt as he unfolded
the page. He felt his anger grow even before reading the first
word. </font></p>
<p><i><font face="Georgia" size="2">The pulse you make me feel below, the gift you bring me… The beating
of my own savage heart triggered by the emerging sun of your sweet
face…</font></i><font face="Georgia" size="2"> </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">It happened slowly?after he discovered his wife’s infidelity.
Neither could explain the increasing intensity of William’s libido,
how he entered her abruptly without stopping, not even for a second,
until she screamed in climax. He wanted to punish her but was
betrayed by the lust he felt seeing her lie there, upon their
marital bed. Elizabeth wanted to save herself for her lover,
and fought against the relentless rhythm of his thrusting. She
felt trapped as if in a bullring, trying to side step the flaming
red cloth, all the while never realizing how sharp the blade behind
the cape. </font></p>
<p><i><font face="Georgia" size="2">The fullness of your body, the curve of your breast, the hardening
of your nipple against my touch… wait for you only. Your Loving
Gregor.</font></i><font face="Georgia" size="2"> </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">William often feared losing his possessions. A fierce businessman,
he spent his weeks and months frantically collecting, sustaining
a momentum that carried him and suspended him above his insecurities.
Most of them. It was not his fault she never conceived. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">* * *</font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">The old woman had tortured her. Lying back upon the wooden table,
Elizabeth tried to disappear until it was over. How many times?
Six? Eight? </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">There would be only two sets of feet in that house, or she would
die in the attempt. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">* * *</font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">The summer became autumn. The horror of the truth was revealed
to him quite innocently. During their Saturday afternoon trip
to the library, over the mountain, he came upon a book describing
how electricity affected certain solids, chemicals, reactions
under speculation of scientific thought. How the phenomenon of
streaked energy, so difficult to contain, manipulate, and control,
could be made to bounce and link between one object and the next.
Molecules gone wild. </font></p>
<p><i><font face="Georgia" size="2">The wild wind in your auburn hair… The strands upon your sweet
lips…</font></i><font face="Georgia" size="2"> </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">That afternoon there was an abyss into which he fell, clutching
the book in his hands until he felt the shockwaves traveling up
his arm. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Elizabeth did not like the blankness of his face when he looked
at her. She was a little dizzy that morning, a side effect from
the old woman's instrument. She thought she heard a whisper as
she passed through the front door when they left. Elizabeth could
not make out the words but it sounded like a sign of resignation,
mournful and jealous. </font></p>
<p><i><font face="Georgia" size="2">I would stay with you forever… and steal you away from the other
who holds the key to your chains…</font></i><font face="Georgia" size="2"> </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">* * *</font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">William was brought to trial the following spring. The disappearance
of his wife remained a mystery until one of the Coglin boys came
forward and spoke with the sheriff. The young boy saw Mr. Pentry
and his wife leaving town on the main road but he also knew Pentry
came back into town after dark on a Saturday. He was alone.
It was the last day anyone had seen Elizabeth alive. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">It was not until two weeks later that William contacted the authorities
about his wife’s disappearance. She had vanished into thin air
one afternoon while he was in town on business discussing contracts
for the railroad. </font></p>
<p><i><font face="Georgia" size="2">Your passion sustains me…</font></i><font face="Georgia" size="2"> </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Such wicked evil had entered their lives. </font></p>
<p><i><font face="Georgia" size="2">The softness of your lips… your juices sweet upon my tongue….
beyond the rolling hills and this mountain that separates our
love, as beautiful and warm in July as the radiant heat of your
breasts…</font></i><font face="Georgia" size="2"> </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">He could almost hear Elizabeth screaming in Hell now, as he felt
them pull the coarse black cloth over his head and face. Blocking
out the light one last time. Pitch black like her heart, he thought.
</font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2"> * * *</font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2"> “Could I help you, sir?” </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">He froze, his mind a mass of confusion. As he handed her his
money he felt a jolt jump along his arm through the lovely woman’s
electric hand. The woman's strawberry blonde hair and freckles
were disarming on the face of the devil. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2"> “Thank you, sir. Good afternoon.” </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2"> “Yes. Goodbye,” he sighed as if the air was leaving him. He
looked down at the small wooden block at her station and read
. . . </font></p>
<p><i><font face="Georgia" size="2">…read now aloud as he suddenly became weightless, his execution
final like an electric spark or a piece of chemical dust as he
disappeared into the blackness. It all made sense. It was the
woman who worked in the library.</font></i><font face="Georgia" size="2"> </font></p>
<p><i><font face="Georgia" size="2">Sarah Gregor.</font></i><font face="Georgia" size="2"> </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">* * *</font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">The house on Kingston Street remained undisturbed but its patience
was never ending. It was only a matter of time before a fresh
breath sang along its walls, over its dusty floors. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">The sound of footsteps was poetry to the old place. The harmony
of a pair of feet was delightful and it never took long before
one pair, or even several, became the perfect cadence. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">It was a struggle for the couple to make ends meet. Both were
almost in shock when the realtor called with news that their low
bid had been accepted. Even the house knew it was time. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">* * *</font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Roger and Peter opened all the windows on the day of closing.
Using portable fans they tried to blow the dankness up the hallways
and out through the windows. But something about the smell was
enticing and they were surprised to find the hunger and the heat
below their waists brought to life within hours of unlocking the
front door with their own key. All the cheap shades were left
by the last occupant and were drawn except for the ones in the
hallways by the fans. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">They started out holding hands, walking naked from room to room.
The feel of the house was even more astonishing than during the
tour they received five weeks earlier. Their nakedness generated
a heat pleasing to the house. The men felt a warmth and the floor
seemed almost hot, even for the south in mid-July. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">It was like the time they first met at the university, a lifetime
away yet settling between them in the sweat of their bodies.
The heat of the summer day brought a slickness to their hot friction,
sweat dripping off the gray hairs of Roger’s chest as he entered
his lover. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Peter’s moan brought back the memory of the first time Roger made
love to him, when he stained the quilt his mother had made him.
The intensity of being taken from behind lifted him beyond his
years as he inhaled deeply the scent of their passion mixed with
the uncanny smell of the house. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Peter moaned as the heat within him grew, then gave way. His
cry seemed to echo through the welcoming walls forever. </font></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="CENTER" valign="TOP"><b><font face="Georgia" size="5"><img src="graphics/onthedottedline.gif"></font></b></td>
</tr>
</table>
</font></td>
<td align="CENTER" valign="TOP" width="226"><!--#include virtual="includes/currentinside.shtml" -->
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="488"><font face="Georgia" size="2"><table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2" width="474">
<tr>
<td align="LEFT" width="8"><font face="Georgia" size="2" color="#CCCCCC">..</font></td>
<td align="CENTER"><!--#include virtual="includes/textnav.shtml" -->
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</font></td>
<td align="CENTER" width="226"></td>
</tr>
</table>
</p>
</body>
]]>