The Crack in the Ceiling

Day two of my experiment to implement a new routine of trying to write 250 words per day.

The house was old when we originally moved in; not generationally old, like the kind of grandiose manor house that comes to mind when people tell you about these things; no delusions of grandiose history here, just a decrepit old building that froze in both winter and summer, where cavities would form labyrinthine cracks through aging brickwork, blowing cold air through every room and shrieking like a chorus of high pitch banshees whenever there was a bluster. It was the kind of house where, when it rained, the water would pool under the substrate and slowly pull itself up through the greying walls, a discoloured bruise that would grow larger and larger until, through some act of god, there would be enough of a prolonged period of warmth that the drywall would be as its description suggests once more.It had been raining almost solidly now for eight days, and Gemma had watched the slow progression of the crack in the ceiling each night; first a hairline fissure, then a longer fracture that bifurcated the expanse of dimly painted eggshell ceiling from wall to light, lifting the surface into a scar.