Bricks, Get Your Freshly Fallen Bricks Right Here

I was drafting another post about music and memory and somesuch, but I will have to save it for another night. Why? Oh, no big deal. The wall of the abandoned house next door fell down, filling the space between it and my house with bricks that burst open the front gates and spilled out into the street.

My dogs are barking at the firemen in front of our house. We have yellow tape. Now we know that we’ve really moved in.

Let me set the scene. I was just finishing dinner. The dogs and the cat were wandering about, taking turns asking for food. I was about to take my dishes to the sink when, with no warning (you would expect a rumble of thunder or at least a stiff breeze), the entire house shook, accompanied by a sound that fell somewhere between breaking teeth and a thousand blenders filled with rocks.

Did I just hear the firemen calling all hands to my street? Is that good or bad?

I thought my house might be falling down, so I did the sensible thing—I ran upstairs and downstairs, looking for signs of broken house or toppled shelves. Then I went outside, stepping into a foot of rubble—nothing compared to the two or three feet of rubble in my yard. The neighbor from across the street came over, and we engaged in the following bit of dialog:

MURK: Huh.
NEIGHBOR: Holy…Jesus Christ!
MURK: Yeah. Hrrm?
NEIGHBOR: I mean…Jesus Christ!
MURK: That’s…really…impressive?

And so on. My roommate and her boyfriend drove up in the middle of it all. They got to experience my manic telling of the story, which ended with something along the lines of “That there is fucked up, is what that is.”

A fireman just knocked on the door and gave me some basic information. They didn’t find anyone in the building, thankfully. Also, we’re in what they consider the “collapse zone.” If we leave our house, we should make sure to exit to the right. Well, all righty, then.

This is Murk, live from the collapse zone.