July 19, 2025

When I was about 6 years old, my dad took me on a long walk through the woods by our house. He told me we were going to "Spot's." Spot was the nickname of a friend my dad grew up with. Someone I never met and only heard mentioned when reminiscent adults brought up the house where they could freely watch MTV, unsupervised.

After a 2 mile hike, my dad pointed at Spot's house. Well, what remained of it. The entire front of the home had collapsed. Piles of wooden siding laid in heaps around the foundation. Amazingly, part of the house still stood. Stairs, sagging and cracked, lead to the struggling second story. In one of the rooms, a bed was partially made. Dingy blankets hung from its edge and flapped in the breeze. What walls and floors hadn't already caved in, or fallen over, looked like they were about to.

While inspecting the house, my dad told his own story about watching MTV at Spot's house as a kid, unbeknownst to his parents. My eyes scanned the crumbling ruins. In a second-story room, opposite the one containing the ghostly bed, a floor-model television sat. As my dad spoke, I imagined it suddenly bursting to life, playing an AC/DC video.

The state of the house made it look impossible for anyone in this lifetime to have lived in it; but my dad said only 20 years had passed since he last sat in front of the TV with Spot.

I asked my dad to walk me to Spot's house many times after that, until one day it disappeared. The leaning, wretched memory of a house became only that: a memory.

Since then, I've always been fascinated by the stories of structures that become reclaimed and demolished by nature.

How long has it been since someone stood inside?

How long will it be until nothing remains?