The Priscilla Collins House

Holden was a small town full of average people living ordinary lives in unremarkable houses, with one notable exception. Beyond the whirring factories, past the sun-kissed fields, and across from a long-abandoned strip mall, the meticulously maintained and violently visceral manor of Priscilla Collins stood in stark contrast to the world around it.

“It’s quite understandable to wake up, peer out the window, and immediately descend into madness at the sight of everything happening out there. Especially when the happenings are the same happenings that are always happening.” This was what Priscilla told people when they asked her why she had built such an imposing house that contained nothing but a door, a window, and a tiny floor panel suspended over a crocodile infested reservoir. When you pointed out this was a nonsensical answer, she would insist it made just as much sense as anything else—a statement that was harder to dispute the longer one reflected on it.

In the years following Priscilla’s death, visiting her house became a pilgrimage of sorts for the townspeople dealing with “typical worldly shock”. Visitors would come in, lie on the floor, and take a little nap in the same spot that Priscilla once did. Waking up to the sound of reptile teeth snapping, surrounded by the offensive wallpaper, and a faint scent of burning motor oil, they would smile and a sense of calm would descend upon them. None of it made any sense but that was just fine. The window was twelve feet overhead and all you could see was the sky.