The Door Rotted From Its Hinges

Clive followed the door because in his imagined house, the door rotted from its hinges. The compulsion of the imagined house was stronger than the disenchantment of what he saw. Clive looked at the skinny, unappetizing child framed against the recession of that long, dark entry and the stairway ascending under the bleak glare of another of those oversized sash windows. One could imagine a woman's laugh flaring out in such a house, but not not the laughter of a child. And there was nothing he could do about it, and pity was unavailing.