Did you know that in every town in England harbouring over a thousand souls, there is an identical street? Halfway along this street are a house and a church, standing next to one another.
The church resembles an eastern temple, dome erupting with minarets, walls and niches decorated with the fractal vines and briars of arabesque.
The house next door is silent, and nobody lives there, not for long.
The house has only one door, although from all appearances it has several. To accept this on face value would be a mistake.
Several of the doors to the house are in actuality the same door making different expressions in a mirror.
One door is the maw of an expectant bear, chained to the wall and holding a doorknob close to his terrible, waiting face.
Another door is four feet below itself, and scared of looking up.
Another door is drawn onto the wall in crayon, and so naturally only opens on a Thursday.
The house has many rooms, and secret passageways that connect them, hidden in floors, furniture and cracks in the stonework. Since only one person can enter a room at a time, and people often walk in threes, the house has a system for deciding who gets to stay.
No one. No one gets to stay.
One day, the house and the church will vanish from the street in your town. That’s when you’ll know there are less than a thousand of you left. I hope that you are one of those people, and that the house does not eat you.
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