The House They Left Behind: A Story of Florida’s Fading Past

A SHORT STORY

THE HOUSE THEY LEFT BEHIND

They said the storms would take it.
They said the years would crumble it into the soil.
But still it stands—the last house of a town that faded like mist.

Once, laughter danced from the porch, and kitchen light spilled across the fields.
Now, only the wind visits, whispering through broken windows, stirring up memories no one quite remembers anymore.

Yet the house waits, stubborn as ever, holding on to the weight of forgotten summers, lost songs, and all the quiet things no one thought to carry when they left.

Somewhere between what was and what’s forgotten, the house still waits, steady as a fading heartbeat.

BEHIND THE LENS

Some places don’t just catch your eye—they seek your heart.

You step into them by accident, or maybe by instinct, and feel something stir: a quiet pull, a whisper of old stories that haven’t been told in years.

That feeling often finds me on the backroads, where small towns lean into the landscape and the fields hum with their slow, steady music. It’s where I feel most at home. Most people picture Florida as endless beaches and glittering water, but the Florida I love lives inland—in the slowness of farming towns, in the stillness of empty roads lined with live oaks. The beaches? I’ll take the dunes and the birds. It’s the quiet places that have always lured me in.

That same quiet call led me to The House They Left Behind.

I had passed this old farmhouse in Levy County more than once, feeling it reach out a little more insistently each time. It wasn’t an easy place to get to—rough terrain, barbed-wire fences, and the usual companions of tall grass and insects—but those things have never stopped me. I’ve been climbing fences and stepping through weeds ever since I first cradled a camera in my hands. It’s why there’s always a pair of worn work boots waiting in the back of my van.

Out here, you never know when the road—and your imagination—might lead you to something still waiting to be seen.

There’s a kind of sadness to a place left behind, but there’s beauty too—and that day, I finally gave myself the time to walk toward it.

The house stood quiet against the fields, and as I paused there, I could almost hear the echoes of lives once lived within its walls.

To make this image, I handheld my Hasselblad 907x 50c with the XCD 28P lens, stepping carefully over the uneven ground, mindful of snakes and other creatures feeling the vibration of my footsteps. The area is thick with live oaks and dotted with cows grazing the pastures surrounding the house.

Out front, the old mailbox leans stubbornly on its thick wooden post, weathered and splintered from years of storms and sun. Two red warning disks still catch the light, dulled now with dust and time. And nailed beneath them, spelled out in crooked plastic letters, a simple question remains: “Got Jesus.”

Even in its silence, the house and the land still hold the traces of lives once rooted here—a path worn by memory, a porch waiting for footsteps, a faith that weathered every storm.