Chapter 2. Why Is the House in Haifa Haunted?
Why Is the House in Haifa Haunted?
Why—
Why is the house in Haifa haunted?
I’m the only one who knows. The haunting—
Is caused by sickness: a deeply rooted, festering ill.
It is a malady that has rotted the wood and salted the windowsills and harbors the rain when it falls.
It boils the bathtub with scalding water meant to stifle; drips saltwater from ceiling to floor in a never-ending cycle of remembrance; kills—kills—those who live over the dead.
It’s a suffocation, a sickness, caused by being torn;
being cut.
salt in the wound, salt in the flesh.
It is a sickness not cured by time nor newness; it is a sickness caused by 1948. No, in fact time has only caused the sickness to spread, to grow, to haunt.
To drown.