Castle Story
Matthew Ryan Fischer
Brandon had watched when construction began. He walked by the site every day while out for
his morning exercise. He wasn’t sure what
was going to be built, but he knew it was going to be big. Nearly three years later, it was large and
there were multiple buildings. At first
he thought it was going to be an apartment building or possibly a condominium
complex. It was a house for one man.
It ended up being one of the most insane looking properties
Brandon had ever seen. One building was
shaped like a cylinder. One was box
shaped. A bridge connected them. What looked like a multi-car garage was built
with Greco Roman columns and trim. There
seemingly was no rhyme or reason. It was
like ten architects began building and met in the middle. Or one came after the other and just added. And added.
Not for any reason, but because they could. There was a second story balcony that ran the
length of two-thirds of the house, but not on the other third. A roof top porch had a second story.
It was a sight to see. It
was a site to see.
None of those excesses were what bothered Brandon. What caught his eye and attention was the
moat. The man had built a moat around
his house. Who builds a moat in this day
and age? The very idea somehow was off
putting to Brandon. On top of that, it
was on the inside of the property fence.
Brandon wasn’t sure if this made things better or worse. The fence served a purpose. The moat did not. Historically a moat was meant to
provide some preliminary line of defense.
If the moat was meant for defense, then shouldn’t it have been put on
the outside of the wall? Brandon wasn’t
sure. What did he really know about
defending castles or how to properly build the means to that end? But this moat was clearly ornamental. Or so it would appear for the outside. He hadn’t actually been inside the property
to inspect. Maybe there were piranhas in
the water or maybe it was electrified.
But maybe not. From where he
stood it looked like pretty normal water.
Maybe there would be gondola rides for the owner’s friends. That would at least have indicated there was
some useful intent intended upon when construction was conceived. Maybe, maybe not.
What was this man afraid of, Brandon wondered. Were his neighbors secretly criminals? Was an invasion imminent? Maybe he was the sort of man that thought some
sort of post apocalyptic world was on the horizon and he would need his walls
and fence and moat to protect him. Maybe
the owner was starting a cult. Maybe
there were two dozen brainwashed victims living inside and the moat was meant
to keep them in as much as it was meant to keep prying eyes out.
How much money had been spent so this man could make
himself into a spectacle? How much money
had been spent so this man could feel safe?
Brandon didn’t want to feel angry or upset about that. He didn’t want to feel sorry for the man
locked inside his insane little castle.
Brandon couldn’t help himself. He shook his head and told himself that it
didn’t matter. That didn’t help. This had been the path he had taken for his
morning walks for the better part of ten years.
He hated that some silly thing like a modern day moat was going to piss
him off so much that he had to change his path and be reminded daily that he
had changed it because of this affront to architecture, or he would have to
walk past it every day and some how either bear witness to the terrible edifice
or somehow find peace with it. None of
these options sounded like options.
Two days later Brandon met a college student who was taking
pictures of the house to post on her blog.
She said that she had seen it the day before and just had to come back
to document it. She said it was one of
the worst crazy looking houses she had ever seen and that the home owner must
have be cracked out of his mind.
Good, thought Brandon. At
least he wasn’t alone.
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