The Wooden Castle
Updated: Jul 23
The old castle up on the hill? I don’t know much about it, I’ve never been inside. Did I say castle? I meant house. Yeah, the old house up on the hill, that’s it. I don’t think you need to worry about that place. Nobody’s trapped inside the walls. There are no children in there trying to solve any mysteries. I don’t think anyone’s lived in that castle for a long time. House, I mean. You know if they tore that place down, they could put anything there. Like how they paved paradise and put up a parking lot. But there’s no need for a parking lot way up on that old hill and no one’s ever accused that place of being paradise.
Me? I’ve lived here my whole life—unless you count the time I spent elsewhere. What I mean to say is that I was born and raised here and I’m here now, so that’s what counts. Of course the house was here when I was a kid, that’s why it’s called old. Sure I’ve heard stories about it, but those are only stories. I don’t have any firsthand knowledge of it to share, I’ve never been inside! Yeah I was curious when I was younger, you know how kids are. They play with bugs and dig in the dirt for no reason. You don’t see a lot of mature adults doing that unless there’s something wrong with them. Okay, maybe a bunch of us went up there to check the place out, but that would’ve been years ago. I don’t live in the past, and I don’t live in that damned castle! I know it’s a house, but if you’re a little kid you might think of it as a castle. But there’s no moat and the masonry ain’t nothing special neither. Plus it’s mostly made out of wood! I’m guessing, it’s not like I ever took the place apart and put it back together.
Look I think it’s fine to ask people about things and I’ve been known to do that myself, but getting firsthand knowledge is pretty hard to beat. In other words, in case my drift is too hard to catch, I’m telling you to go up there and check it out yourself if you’re so curious! Just follow LaGrange Road all the way up to the top. Everybody knows that, there aren’t any deep dark secrets about that place. Stories, sure, plenty of stories, but I can tell you all kinds of stories about places I’ve never been inside of and maybe you’d find that really interesting and come away feeling like you learned something, but for all you know I just made it all up.
Have you really thought about what would happen if you walled up people inside a place like that? Well first there would be a smell; terrible. There’d be all kinds of critters getting in there too, and the gasses and fluids and stuff, that would just rot everything from the inside and the walls would come tumbling down. You can put gold or silver bars inside a wall without any negative impact on the structural integrity, but why not just have a normal solid wall with nothing inside it other than maybe insulation and some wiring, that’s—that’d be the most sensible thing.
Listen, children go missing all the time. Talk to the police, they’ll tell you. When I was young there’d be some fool kid disappearing almost every other week—of course we’re going to tell stories about it! Then you got that castle overlooking the town like a goddamn gargoyle, people are going to let their imaginations get away from them. And sure some idiots might even start talking about checking it out, even though there’s no proof, no way to know—and if it were true, if there were some kind of evil up in that place, well why in the world would you want to go inside? You might go there with a group of friends, daring each other and pissing your pants the whole way, and maybe you might try to impress some girl you like by standing on the front porch or looking in a window. Young people do all sorts of foolhardy things! I know human nature, that’s what I’m talking about, but you shouldn’t take what I’m saying as gospel—it’s important to find things out for yourself sometimes. And sometimes it’s important to just leave well enough alone. What if you find out something you don’t like? You might spend half your life trying to forget, running away, going from this place to that, until you’re drawn back to the source of the horror almost against your will!
Talk to the mayor. I don’t know where she lives, but her office is downtown. If the mayor doesn’t know something, I trust she’ll know who does. She’s a duly-elected official. I don’t know her personally, we didn’t go to grade school together. I’m just saying that people in official positions can be helpful for all sorts of things, that’s why they’re duly-elected! I’d also recommend going to Randy’s Diner, but don’t order from the menu. Just get the Catch of the Day. Sometimes it’s not that great, but you have to take risks now and then. That old house ain’t worth your time, to be honest. It’s like any other house except it’s older and it’s up on a hill and people tell all kinds of stories about it. I could tell you a story about any building in this town if I cared to. And you know how many old castles there are spread across England? And those are made from real stone! You could fit two, maybe three people deep in some of those walls, and maybe dozens across. And they’re so old that there’d be nothing left of those bodies anymore. Maybe skeletons, but why would you tear apart an ancient castle just to look at some old bones? It’s not like they’re hurting anything and if they didn’t bring the house down way back then, why worry about it now?
About Jerry White Jr.
Jerry is a filmmaker, musician, writer. He began making films as a teenager through home movies and public access television in Metro Detroit, later studied at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, and has continued to move across film, writing, music, and collaborative creative communities.
About TANGENTS
TANGENTS is a new recurring literary section for flash fiction, short prose, and fragments that move outside fixed categories, published by STRATUM. It is a dedicated space for compressed narratives, strange turns, and writing that sits ambiguously between fiction, memory, humor, unease, and dream logic.
Edited By Yuyang Hu
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