Greetings loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader presents for you one of the best opening paragraphs of a horror story. Taken from one of the best horror stories of all time, The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson.

No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.

If you desire, you can pick up the book at Amazon. (Clicky here.)

If reading isn’t your bag, you can watch the 1963 movie based on the story.

There is also a 1999 movie if you prefer newer.

Personally, your Maximum Leader preferred the 1963 version with Julie Christie. The 1999 version with Catherine Zeta-Jones struck him as “meh.”

Villainette #1 informs your Maximum Leader that Netflix has a version out now that they produced. He’ll have to check it out.

Carry on.

He sipped his coffee as he stood on the porch watching his dog leave a shit in the yard. He surveyed the yard and marvelled at the number of acorns that had fallen from the oaks. “The desire to continue life,” he thought to himself. How many acorns were there? More than hundreds. Thousands? Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands? It would be a sisyphean task to count them. And where the fuck were the squirrels? Weren’t they supposed to be hoarding them for winter? There wasn’t a damned squirrel to be seen anywhere.

But lots of acorns.

Ron walked around town for his health, and because he could get everywhere he needed to go by walking. Every morning he went to get a coffee. His path took him by the town cemetery. He looked at the stones as he passed. He memorized their order. He saw many familiar names. These were the parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and great-great-grandparents of people he knew. He wondered how many of his friends would occupy this corner of earth one day. The thought that he would like to occupy a small patch there one day as well. It was comforting.