He wore worn out overalls. His shirt was once yellow, or white, and he sat in his chair, in distant thoughtâlooking towards an abandoned cabin on the prairie. I canât recall why I was here, but I knew I wanted to know more about that cabin.
âIâm not sure how I... " My mind was clouded.
âYou lost?â the man peered at me.
âI wouldnât be asking if I wasnât.â
The man slowed his rocking. âYour maâ raised you to reply like that?â
âNo, sir. Sorry, I, I donât know where I am.â
âSo youâve told me.â
He seemed to be discerning something across the road. I looked, and he noticed.
âSee that cabin over yonder?â
"You just came from there."
I was confused. âWhat do you mean?â
âI mean you ambled over to my porch from over there looking lost like a pup left behind. Several times too.â
I couldnât stop staring at him. âWhy donââ
"They disappear: most folks that go in. Sometimes they come back though. Not as you remember them, or as who they were, but sometimes they come back. You could say that it always takes away something. A small piece of yourself, or all of it. It always steals your memory though... Always your memory." He turned to me, "thatâs why Iâve told you this too many times already."
I thought a while. "I went in⊠Because... That cabin, took something from me."
"Sure did, sure did; and youâre gonna keep losing something if you keep going inside it."
"You should leave. That cabin moves. You could say it follows you⊠" The man kept staring at it in the distance, as one would a headstone.
I obeyed, but kept trying to recall what I lost.