The house that waited
There was a house at the edge of the town
But no one lived there
Or —no one remembered living there.
The doors were always open,
The windows always shut.
The garden grew hands instead of flowers,
Pale fingers curling where roses should be.
A child once wandered inside.
She walked through the rooms,
touching nothing.
She found a dining table,
Set for a meal that had not been served.
The chairs were full.
Not with people,
But with the shapes of people—
The outlines of bodies, drawn in dust.
She whispered, "Who are you?"
And the dust whispered back,
"Who were you?"
She ran.
She told her parents.
They didn’t remember a house at the edge of town.
But she did.
And at night,
the house whispered her name.
She grew older.
The house waited.
One day, she passed by again.
The door was open.
The windows were shut.
She stepped inside.
She did not come out.
The next morning, a new child walked by.
But no one lived there.
She saw a house at the edge of the town.
Or—no one remembered living there.
Yet if one listened closely,
Through the hush of the wind,
Beneath the weight of silence,
A whisper stirred within the dust.
It called a name.
Not hers.
Not yet.
