Terminus: Houston Avenue

[jack_babalon]

A Frozen Heartbreak
May 13th, 2007
~Rob M

Something bad happened behind this window and it never went away.

Houston Avenue is a little side street just off Boulevard about a block down from Freedom Parkway. There you'll find an abandoned housing complex consisting of six sets of empty apartment buildings each seperated by a modest courtyard. I found this one day by accident when I veered off the bike trail. There was something about the place that felt more than a little Off, I felt a psychic nausea i've gotten every now and then, a feeling not of fear but the echo of fear if that makes sense.

I explored around a little, making my way along the rows of boarded up windows and kicked in doors. I stepped around broken toys that littered the stone steps along with the empty mad dog bottles that offered the only proof of any recent inhabitation. The sounds of little children shouting in spanish wafted over from the complex next door mingling with that unique scent you get in these places that reeks of mold, piss and plaster.

As I was walking around I looked up and saw the window posted above. I felt a wave of terrible empathy wash over me, a palbable sadness, I felt a constriction of breath and slightly dizzy. I fired off a couple of shots and looked back up again. I caught a face peering back down just over the windowsill. Just for a second and then it was gone. A second was all it took for me to know it was time to get the fuck on out of there.

I went back a few weeks later with the Magpie. This time the vibe was gone. It was just another condemned apartment complex in the ATL that some piss bums were using as a makeshift shelter. Nothing more. I looked back up at the window and got a slight chill but more from the memory of the face (was it a face? I remember a set of eyes and then a blur)than the my current proximity to it. Finally, bored, the two of took off and went back to my place. I haven't been back there since.

Comments

[efire360.livejournal.com]

Kidsize or full grown?

[jackbabalon23.livejournal.com]

The face? Not sure really. Mainly I remember the whites of their eyes looking down and then a blur. To be honest I chock it to my overactive imagination and certain bad habits that tend to feed said imagination.

[animeoni.livejournal.com]

creepy. cool.

[jackbabalon23.livejournal.com]

You're too sweet, thanks:)

[vomikronnoxis.livejournal.com]

Ghost housing projects are some of the creepier places around -- I got lost driving in West Atlanta and wound up by one. It was like a scene from "Session 9."

Great shot, you can almost hear the echo of voices.

~rl

[melodyclark.livejournal.com]

You're as gifted a writer as you are a photographer. A great post.

[jackbabalon23.livejournal.com]

Thank you.