The House at Midnight

New Year’s Eve was my least favourite night of the year. I didn’t like the weight of expectation it carried, both in the sense that everyone felt obliged to have a good time, as if what they did would set a pattern for the coming year, and with the idea that this year would be different, as if on the turn of midnight we could cast off our old weak-willed selves and become new, better people.

Even now, I can remember the first time I saw the house as clearly as if there were a video of it playing in my head.