The House With Skeleton Shutters Poem by Micah Krahn

At the end of the lane was a house we always stayed away from, I'm sure it was a elegant house in its time
but it had fallen to disrepair and had been the neighborhood's eyesore for decades, as the generations grew up
and moved away the house stayed the same.

There was just something beautifully tragic about seeing a tormented rundown abandoned house
at the end of the lane, nothing bad happened to any of the occupants who lived there it was just long
since abandoned. Or none that we had heard of.

Of Victorian era, the house was its unique style was apparent to the rest of the neighborhood as many of the
houses were built to resemble realistic modern houses. The oyster cinerealed house ruined from decades of brick
and mortared decay. Barely structured, the rafters were the only thing left in the house that wasn't completely
rotted out. The anorexic house clutched onto its skeleton shutters with a deathly hinged grip. Windowless
impressions lay dormant where windows once were placed, the jutted window frames splintered the frame of the
house sending wooded slivers throughout the vintage styled mansion.

Throughout the years children would often throw rocks at the windows, trying to best each other through childish bets
and feats of bravery. Teenagers would often dare other youths to enter the house and see how long they could last in
the residence, which was claimed to have been haunted but clearly wasn't; or not that I had ever really thought about it.

It wasn't until my seventeenth year, when I was in my 11th high school grade in which I had a school assignment on
Victorian Houses. I knew of just one house that fit that description. Yep, that one! In my class, my friends always
complained that essays were the worst assignments to do because it all came down to researching and telling in you
own words of what or how the essay affected the overall progress on the current project. A matter of perspective actually.

Upon researching the house I came across an alarming statistic. The house was originally built by a Victorian lord, he wasn't
necessarily royalty but he was a noblemen, and of most noblemen of that century, many were well off and rather wealthy. This man
however was quite wealthy, before he even purchased the land. His name was Aiden O'Brien. Irish born, he traveled to Belfast
in his early twenties and got a job as a steel worker and began nearly immediately forging strong Irish steel into the
undercarriage of the RMS Titanic.

I can only imagine what came next for this flourishing young man, Aiden O'Brien.

Rising through the ranks quite quickly he went from laborer to foreman in quick succession. The Irish Shipping Board rewarded
his steadfast and favorable devotion towards perfecting every steel plate unto the grand mile long ship with making him an
Able Seamen on the RMS Titanic maiden voyage. Three years passed upon completion of the vessel; Aiden now a family man,
his wife died from childbirth midway through three year building commitment. Giving birth to his little angel,
Esther Rose O'Brien who was but two and a half years old when the christened ship left Belfast on her maiden voyage.
The date of 14th of April,1912 forever chiseled in stone and ever etched into the mind of Aiden O'Brien. He awoke among a
commotion in the hallway from the neighboring passengers on his floor, he got dressed quickly and proceeded down towards the
officer's rooms.

Esther followed Aiden outside and asked her papa what was going on, He picked her up and hustled down the long messy corridor,
people scattered amongst the decks in the dark frail cloudy snowy weather. Upon his gained knowledge of the recent occurrence,
he ushered his daughter to his long term Irish friend Elizabeth Johanna Welsh and told her to get into a long boat with Esther,
he would be along shortly as soon as he got the word from his commanding officer. Receiving the word he headed to his longboat and
proceeded to fill women and children onto his vessel, careful enough not to overload for fear of capsizing all precious cargo inside.

Words cannot explain the horrors of what he saw that evening. People fighting like animals, desperately trying to cling onto their
escaping humanity which was slipping away beneath the frigid wintry waters of the algid Atlantic Ocean. Guilty from the horrors of
not readily acting upon saving survivors from the wintered tragedy.

Days later, heralds and newspapers everywhere across the North America documented the tragedy in emmence details. Aiden, Elizabeth
and Esther just wanted to move on with their lives, far away from the prying press and nosy people. Settling in New Haven, New York.
Aiden bought a large twenty acre plot of land in which he had high hopes to build a house and live the rest of their lives in peace.
Construction began in 1915 and finished in 1917; they had lived there no longer than eleven years. When Esther got married and moved
away to Bridgeport, New York. Aiden and Elizabeth never married but remained close throughout the decades after the Titanic tragedy.

Winter plagued the township of New Haven in 1928, so cold that vagrants and homeless men and women often caused turmoil with land owners
in the vicinity of New Haven. One especially cold night, Aiden and Elizabeth awoke to a commotion inside their house. Aiden persuaded
Elizabeth to stay in bed and he would go down and investigate the disturbance. Quietly moving downstairs he came across a group of well
weathered men and women who were freezing bitterly from the wintered blizzard wonderland outside their door. Aiden walked into the kitchen
and walked right into a barrel of a colt waving bravado. That was the last he saw of this world, he felt no pain. The intruders stepped
over his body rushed upstairs and shot Elizabeth, scavenged what they could and escaped before authorities could track them down.


Weeks later Esther Rose O'Brien held funeral services outside their home, where they were buried side by side. United upon tragedy they lived
their lives to serving their community and raising their beloved daughter. Esther planted two weeping willows beside their graves as a reminder
for the two parents who unfortunately died too soon. Esther took over the house with her husband Christopher and their five children. The children
grew up and moved away to Meriden, Fairfield and Stamford. Christopher passed in 1991, Esther followed him a ten years later but not before asking
a young man to take care of their residence and look after the graves of her parents.

That young man was me, sometimes on pale cloudy days I can still see Aiden and Elizabeth standing by the window of the house with the skeleton shutters.