Far From The Madding Crowd

That was the house we didn’t have a name for. Too late for afternoon, too early for evening. It made shadows lean the wrong way. The edges of things softened. I used to imagine the flat held its breath then – just long enough to confuse us. Long enough for one thing small to slip in unnoticed.

My sons were quiet that day. Not unusually so – we were always quiet. But it had the shape of waiting. One curled on the chaise, pretending to read. The other watched the dust as if trying to decode its pattern. I remember thinking: if I move too suddenly, Ill disrupt whatever spell we’ve cast. And then of course, I moved.

The sound was only a cough. A chairs sigh. And suddenly everything was off – hand a degree to the left. A book on the table was closed that I remembered open. A brass spoon had shifted, somehow, from east to west on its saucer.

That was the flat. It never changed. But it was always wrong, in ways too small to prove.

They told me later, that I arranged the books by temperature. That I whispered to the piano. That I used to leave notes inside clock casings. I don’t remember doing any of it. But I believe them.

Back then, I believed everything’s they said. They were my witnesses. My sons. My brothers. My mirrors. I don’t know anymore what they were.

 

That evening we let the electric lights stay off. Candles cast thin flames into the hollow spaces, and the air between the stacks grew warmer, closer.

I sat in a velvet chair, the one with the missing button, watching the wax run down the side of a chipped brass holder. The sound of the reeds at the glass, tapping gently, leaning in, the way someone might bend forward when they’re about to speak.

Without meaning to, I thought of my father. The voice came first, the memory after.

Some places remember too much, if you stay too long they remember you too much.