An attic in torchlight: rafters, a plywood walkway and pink insulation between the joists.

Awareness

Nineteen Joists

A landlord asks you to count the joists in his attic for an insurance form.

It's nineteen. It's always been nineteen.

Play in your browser

Home Insurance: Attic Survey

Time to play
30 to 45 minutes
Cost
Free
Plays on
computer, iPad or phone. Best with headphones.
Contains
slow dread, sudden darkness, loud sounds. No blood.

You moved in three weeks ago and you know nobody in town. It's late January, and the heating doesn't reach the hall. You put the groceries away. You answer the phone. You go up the ladder with a pencil, a tape measure and a form, and you count.

A pale green kitchen with a counter and two stools.
I got home at 6:40.
A single-storey house in the snow under a deep blue evening sky.
Up on the roof the snow lay even.
An empty laundromat with a row of dryers along the back wall.
It was the only lit building in town.