Sometimes, you just need to get out.

Down by the local library is an old gray house. It sits between a tidy row of condos (to the left) and a sleek brick office building (to the right). Across the street is an ordinary white house, looking vaguely unsure of itself amidst the long stretch of parking lot that leads up to stores on one side, and the police station and library on the other. Condos, office building, and white house are all inhabited, and I've never heard anything odd about any of the three.

I've never heard anything odd about the old gray house, either, to be fair. It sits high up on a small hill, closed off behind a high wire fence, and between the uncut front lawn and the crumbling wood of the front steps, it's quite clearly empty of human inhabitants. But there are three signs on the gate through the wire fence. PRIVATE NO TRESPASSING, says one. CONSTRUCTION NO ENTRY, says the second. And up at the top of the gate hangs one of those kitschy little wooden country-style signs: PLEASE STAY OUT.

There are cement steps that lead up to the wire fence. I sat there the other day and ate my egg salad sandwich, and occasionally looked up at the house. But nothing moved except me and the wind that blew my hair into my face, and the occasional car passing by.

Maybe the house is haunted. Probably not. But it seems like a waste of a setting to me.