Haunting His House

An old man by unpremeditated whim buys the house he was a boy in, and moves into it. He begins to restore it to the house of his memory, thinking to duplicate the happy years. But the further he goes, the less happy he is. Still, he persists. The hobby becomes an obsession. He is practically raging against the obstinacy of fate, that it will not give him back what he has already spent — his youth. He realizes finally that he has built not a time machine but a tomb, a dead house fit only to house the dead: exemplified by the fact that the wood stove is bad for his lung condition, the short bed bad for his back. He is at the point of killing himself to make himself — the last thing needing restoration — appropriate to the house. Then he leaves, burns down the house. He knows that people who thought him eccentric will now think him crazy. But he tells himself, “It is easier to do this than to leave it standing to haunt me.” 

His problem is necrophilia. The house is dead. And he finally learns that the dead ought to be buried, both to be gotten rid of and to spare them the dishonor of decomposing publicly. He cremates the house. ~ Feb. 16, 1981