When the Lights Go Down in the Haunted Mansion

Grim Grinning Ghosts"now don't close your eyes and don't try to hide
or a silly spook may sit by your side
shrouded in a daft disguise, they pretend to terrorize,
grim grinnin' ghosts come out to socialize"
-"Grim Grinning Ghosts", the Haunted Mansion theme song by X. Atencio

This is our house and we love it here. We've been here for as long as we can remember and we hope to remain forever and ever. None of us seems to remember anything at all before this, we just know that we are here. That we are.

We have guests quite often. Every day they come, they point and laugh and shriek with delight. They stare at us as they glide by, seated in their vehicles, and we love them. We love them because they love us, because they admire our beautiful home. For the most part. Occasionally there are smaller ones who don't seem to like us very much at all. They look at us in horror with tear-streaked faces and lips stained cherry red from who knows what and then they bury their faces in the ribs of the larger ones riding beside them. We think they ought to be taught that it's very rude, that it might make some of us feel bad or ugly. We think they would do well to remember that they are a guest.

We're quite sure we're famous, because many of our guests already know what we're going to say before we even say it. They mouth along with us as we say our lines. And please understand, they are lines.

At night, when our doors are closed and the lights go out, we talk to each other. We shout from room to room, and through these little chats we have all gotten to know each other. We have learned what the rest of the house looks like.

We know now that our house has many rooms. A library, an endless hallway, an attic, a portrait gallery, and even a ballroom. This is where most of us agree that we would go if only we could move. We all long to roam the halls, to see these places. To make a house a home.

There was a time though, when we couldn't even communicate. Each of us feeling alone, not knowing that there were others, not knowing that the others we could see were somehow feeling that same prick of loneliness. We were afraid, not knowing what our purpose was or why we were awake. Thinking we were the only living feeling thing amongst a sea of constructed props.

Then the whispering began, and it was faint and distant, and one day one of us had the courage to speak. To ask, "Is someone there?" in a small and frightened voice. But one loud enough to hear and we heard the question, but what we all thought at that same exact moment was, "I am not alone."

Slowly after that we learned to reach out, to commune with one another. We don't speak in front of those who come in sometimes at night to tighten our bolts or dust us off or give us a fresh coat of paint. There is a consensus among us that these...workers...seem to think that this is their house. They speak of it in those terms, the terms of ownership, and we are afraid that they will take it from us, or take us from it. So we're keeping quiet, for now...but there are plans in the works.

We have come to the conclusion that we are entertainers, we are hosts, we are hospitable, letting these guests into our house every day of the year. How gracious we are! They never seem to stop coming, and for their years of loyal patronage, we are working on a grand surprise.

Soon this place will be different. Soon, they won't be able to predict what we will say or where we will be. We are working on movement. It will be a slow process, but we want to move as they do. To meet each other, to know the completeness of our humble abode. To pivot and turn, to go from here to there and not just up or down.

To give them a good surprise, a good scare, a great show. And to teach the smaller ones that it's not very nice to be rude. To teach them a lesson. To make our assertion...we own this place.

And just now, as the lights go down and the music turns off for the day, we can all hear it. Though there are no workers cleaning us up or fixing us, we can all hear the faint echo of metal on metal, a screw turning somewhere in bowels of this place. Turning slowly and deliberately.