there is a rabbit crack in everything

(plus a special offer)

There’s crack in the ceiling of my bedroom, the last trace of the gaping hole from where roof collapsed in a rainstorm last fall. I say “collapsed” but what actually happened was this: Just after three a.m. I awoke to the sound of a drip. I tried to go back to sleep but the drip was persistent.

Pock… pock… pock…

I switched on the light looked round the room, blinking, unable to find the source. The drip then swelled to a trickle. I looked up to the ceiling to see water pouring from nowhere, as if an invisible tap had been turned. I understood then there was something very, very wrong with my house. It’s an early Victorian house, creaky at the best of times, stuff’s always breaking, but this was unusual. The roof and walls tend to work. I watched in horror as the paint began to bubble and sag. The rain was now sheeting down outside, wind slapped the panes and as the storm picked up force. Inside the ceiling began to gush, pooling into a small lake on the floor. The plaster began to swell and distend like a belly. I squeezed my eyes shut, convinced I trapped in a nightmare directed by Kubrick, but when I opened them again, the ceiling was gushing. My thoughts scrambled into panic. I froze in bed, trying to work out the source. I felt the walls heave and contract around me and found myself gripped by a terrible thought: The house is in labour. Its waters have broken. Now it’s trying to push us all out.

I heard a woman screaming somewhere close by, then Frank, who’d been sleeping in my bed, woke up and began to sob. It was only when I saw the terror on his face that I understood the screams were mine.