Hixon Hall

Another home I thought of for the home assignment was Hixon Hall, which inspired another writing not exactly suited to the assignment:

"I'm ashamed of you - you've done how many Garrick shows and you still haven't heard about the ghosts of Hixon?"  Joe stops scooping peppers back into his italian beef.

"What can I say, I'm ignorant, do tell."

Hixon Hall has served as the school's theatre for more than a hundred years, and had spent an indeterminate number of years as a barn before that. The groans of its wooden planks often drown out actor's lines.

"Alright, there are two: the old man and the young woman." Joe leans into it. Even crouched like this, he's massive. With his giant frame, earthy mannerisms, and supernatural stories, he's earned the nickname "Hagrid." He doesn't seem to mind. I plan on buying him a pink umbrella.

"The young woman is, like, a lonely ghost, so you'll actually see her, cuz she wants the attention." Born 100 years later and she would've done Girls Gone Wild, apparently.

"You've seen her?"  I've dropped my fork by now, scoot my chair closer.  We're tucked into a little corner of the caf, but I still have to strain to hear over the hockey team sitting at the middle king table.

"I've seen her silhouette, Kate's seen her face, Scott's seen her a bunch of times, I'm sure Dennis has some stories . . . " I go down the list mentally: Kate had a Nalgene bottle with her in the green room backstage at all times. It was never filled with water. I'd never seen Scott venture outside of his office in the scene shop to say hi to students, no less regale them with ghost stories. Dennis . . . Dennis just never stopped smiling, and I didn't trust cheshire cats. " . . . the old man, he's what you'd call a malicious ghost.  You don't see him."

"You don't see him, how do you know he's an old man?"

"I've heard stories, Scott . . . you know that cold spot in the hall? The footsteps you'll hear up in the back? That's all him."

"So what's malicious? See that's what I don't get, is that fear of ghosts, it's not like they can do anything . . ."

"Not true. Not true - Scott was once cutting marble board with the table saw when suddenly there was this huge blowback, and he got shards all embedded in his chest, stomach, had to go to the hospital."

"Yeah, but how do you know that wasn't just a shitty saw . . ."

"That saw is shitty, I'll grant you -"

"Of course, cuz it's Hixon, and everything's shitty, so couldn't -"

"But I've used that saw myself a thousand times, and NEVER gotten blowback. Never gotten blowback like that. Plus, the way the saw spins, it's supposed to throw debris away from you, so it had to somehow spontaneously start spinning the opposite direction."

"And so that was the old man."

"Right. Or this other time, security was locking up Hixon while two of my friends were there, and after they had gone through the whole building, they were about to lock up out front when they heard noises. So they went inside, and they found the washer-dryer - you know how the washer-dryer's in the basement by the costume shop and the gigantic heater that's always rumbling? Right, so they go inside, and the washer-dryer's just sitting there right in the middle of the stage. And it's not like they heard noises and checked back the next day. They checked out the noises as soon as they heard them, and they had just been in the black box five minutes before. And those things are heavy. It'd take three, four people to move them. At least twelve people to move them that fast, but everything was locked."