GarageJump rope hanging around her pulsating neck,she picks at the rusty chain andwedges the rotten jammed door open.As she inhales the stifled musty airand steps into the lifeless room,and instant drafty tastes and sudden darknessengulfs the senses.A black of infinite depth glares downward.One tiny window and the transparent garage dooryield the only light.Long tools dangle from their walls,shadows dart off old bikes,garden materials, useless tins and plastics.Wires, buckets, cardboard boxes have been transformedinto lumps of the unknown with sudden evils lurking behind them.Amid this haunted clutter, cobwebscover every blackened, eerie sigh,touching everything with their curseof a perished life.Long wooden beams stretch across the ceiling,a rope dangling over one.The door bangs shut, shutting out the daylight,leaving only the still, throbbing darkness to swallow her.by Joan Faulkner, Lansdale, PA