From the far end of the street, the house looked stately in a faded and lonely sort of way. Its facade towered above the surrounding hedges like a monument to a bygone era, marking the end of one neighborhood and the beginning of another. Its function as a tenuous boundary, however unofficial, conferred on the house a sense of provisionality that made our arrival feel uncertain, as if we were intruding upon something not yet fully settled or claimed.
The house stood on an east-west axis but, because of the layout of its windows, it remained dark for much of the day. On the second story one could feel the evening sun radiating against its outer walls, heating the ancient plaster and turning the mote-laden air torpid. After dark, when the atmosphere finally descended into stillness, the attic beams could be heard groaning with baritone satisfaction, exultant in the caress of the night-cooled air.
Excerpt from 5 Garfield Avenue
Alex Yudzon, 2025