The old stone walls draw in history like moisture, trapping the past inside.
The people come and look and touch, caressing yesterday, trying to feel as if they were there. They look and touch, but they do not listen.
In the evening silence, those old bricks sing and laugh and shriek and cry; 300 years of family life and love. You can hear the waulking songs of the women weaving, the children playing on the cobbled streets, the hammering of the toymaker and the cooper. And you can hear the screams - the screams and cries for help from that night.
The people pass, they do not hear. Just as no one heard me then.
Wednesday 16 May is National Flash Fiction Day, this is my Flashpoint, a story written and left in a place. Why not try it yourself. This particular place happens to be the oldest surviving house in my home town, its part of a project I'm working on just now, The Dutch Gable House.
There are many other places to enjoy flash fiction, today and every day, but in particular check out 1000 words, flashflood, and the incredible and ambitious 3hundredand65 twitter graphic novel, created in aid of the Teenage Cancer Trust.
