#derealisation

With drooping eyelids, you eye the grain; the faded paint. Endless primeval spirals of age and neglect. Born and built with it; will die with it. If you squint, two of the tiles—the ones just in front of the loosely hanging sign of the station’s name—look like a face. Pareidolia. Wonky eyebrows and a crooked grin.

Sometimes, you wonder how they’d react if you caused the delay. Parietal bone ground to dust in less than a second; frontal lobe smeared on their shoes. Someone is stood uncomfortably close behind you, and you can’t decide whether their hot breath on your neck, on your scalp—why is it always so humid down here?—makes you want to take a leap of faith or merely swat at your skin. Layer of grime over all your exposed pores that not even hot water will be able to burn off. You’ve got years of it on you. Second skin. Snake that can’t shed.

Once it sees you looking, its’—her—eyebrows raise in surprise, and her smile widens. Reminds you vaguely of the Cheshire Cat. Cigarette butt pupils point you towards the other side of the platform; over the Stygian chasm of the tracks. 

Your throat itches each time someone to your far right lets out a chesty cough. Infection or virus that you’ll all end up getting. No rest for the wicked. 

Trying not to tip over—bones liquid, legs heavy; when have they not been?—you look forward, and watch. Watch as your eye floaters change into a school of salmon, drifting weightlessly in the effluvium; hook-nosed and vibrant. Their beady eyes search over the station for who knows what. Maybe something to eat. Maybe nothing at all.

Another person’s bag jabs into your ribs. You don’t have it in you to move. Not like you have the space to, anyways. 

Between them, you spy little doodles; graphite twitching in the light. Stars in the corners of pages, graffiti tag you saw on an underpass. All the poster’s eyes on the other side—a musical, a woman holding up some skincare product, corporate memphis style workers pointing towards an app named like a word you came up with when you were eight—are looking at them, too. 

The mass pushes against you, like they know something you don’t. Like they can sense deliverance; birds who know the earthquake, days before it decimates.

You’ve always found them strange, salmon. Contorted with sheer want. 

Tips of your shoes come close to the edge.

The school ebbs, twitching with each other. Hive mind of nerves and muscles, interconnected.

Please mind the gap.

Terrifying, in some ways, in their own desire.

One of their eyes catches on you; one tiny pinprick. Slowly, its misshapen jaw opens and-

-your train hurries into the station in a blur of colour, brakes screeching to a halt. The mass crushes. People to see, things to do.

As you step into the carriage, rushing for a seat between someone dead asleep and a woman with a face packed with piercings, you rub at your eyes, blinking away the drowsiness. It’ll be back in half a minute. You don’t know why you ever try this time in the evening. 

Mindful of the gap, you suppose. 

People slot into place quickly enough; packed like sardines, just as they were yesterday, and probably will be tomorrow. Probably will be forever.

Between the coats, jumpers and faces—your own tired eyes staring back at you in the window—you spy the other platform again; dimly lit, and empty. 

The air is worse in here. Stuffy. No more smog, and instead just secondhand air. Fifteen different colds and probably a chest infection mingling with each inhale and exhale. Baby crying at the far end. 

It’s always been like this.

Despite it all, you’re still cold. Feet frozen in your shoes no matter how much you move them about. 

That is to say, you’ve always been a dreamer.

Hands tucked up in your sleeves; palms clammy. 

Mind quick to conjure whatever it pleases, even when you’re still awake. Or, at least, attempting to be so.

Couldn’t find your old gloves again, so you settle for mild hypothermia. No rest for the wicked.

Half-lucid wanderer of stitched together worlds that slip between your fingers, your neurons, like honey; slow enough to imprint, thin enough to be uncatchable. Kaleidoscope pressed to your eyes; viscous colour seeping through your brain matter. Might as well call yourself a sleepwalker. 

The doors close, and the train begins its routine; bodies swaying to the drag of it. Try not to think about being stuck here for the next forty minutes, just like you did yesterday, just like you’ll do tomorrow, just like you’ll probably do forever. Baby cries louder.

The swell of it all has, admittedly, always managed to lull you to sleep. Blessing of the office worker, you guess. 

Absent-mindedly, you peek between people’s heads and trace your eyes over the different stops; jumble of letters and colours that barely compute.

Take it where you can get it; swallow the stuttering streetlights instead of stars, sing to the tune of the carriage’s low mumble rather than the moon. 

As the train turns, the sleeper’s head falls on your shoulder. He smells of cheap cologne and something fusty. The woman glances over to you as he does, and gives you something of a sympathetic look. You like her earrings. 

Forty minutes.

Gradually, your tired body sags, and your eyelids follow suit. Phosphines spin like pinwheels in the not-so-dark and the not-so-quiet.

You have forty minutes.

A heavy sigh escapes you. 

Anywhere but here, you think.

The train stops, purges a few passengers—please mind the gap—and accepts a few more into the throng. 

Their footsteps, their mumbling, sounds like rain. Sounds like wind…

…whispering through long grass. 

You can feel it, smell it, before you even open your eyes. Effort like peeling a thin film off ‌ your sclera. The sun doesn’t hurt; doesn’t burn. Doesn’t make you squint like you always do when you pull the blinds up, even in winter. 

It’s Summer. Always is, here; always will be, you think. Caught between an over-exposed memory and mountains that never age; layers of soft-edged rock that towers up into the great blue expanse. Late morning—or noon. Some lazy time in the day where your bones are less so heavy with weariness, and instead sunlight. 

Your eyes take in the scene in front of you—neck too stiff to move; dream rules; fluctuating lucid awareness that the wind in the too green long grass may just be the sway of the train—and eye the specks of colour; mottled shapes your eyes don’t know but the quiet part of your head tells you are flowers, at the height of their bloom. 

It’s Summer. Warm, but not humid—always is, here; always will be, you think. Enough so that sweat still beads on your forehead, enough so that the gentle wind is still a reprieve. Between the rustling of the grass, sometimes, you can hear the birds; something close to the chime of the doors opening, something close to some song you heard in a café once. Bells clanking. Dead silence. Everything in between.

The house is here today, too. More of a cottage, really, or a cabin. Small and inconsequential. Distant dot of proof of life, though you’re always alone here. No movement from inside its picturesque windows; no smoke from the chimney. 

Just you, and whatever lies in the long grass. 

You used to be tempted, looking at it. Wanted to run around, run towards it, with all your heart, even if your leg muscles refused you. 

Marionette, even stuck up in your own head. 

You call it the curse of the daydreamer; world at your fingertips, impotent until your thalamus decides you don’t have to be.

You take a long inhale, closing your eyes, and bask in the feeling of air that actually makes your lungs feel full. No itch at the back of your throat. No blackened phlegm to blow out or cough up in the morning.

Content. Always the feeling you get, here.

Languid, you open them again. Cat half asleep in a square of sunlight. 

Summer feels years away. This is good enough.

Neck still fixed, you glance around, watching as, with each turn of your eyes, the cabin’s facade twists and turns in on itself. Around it, the world echoes; repeats. Uncanny in its own way, yet still comforting—humans are creatures of habit, after all. Creatures of routine. Prefer returning to the same paths, the same rituals, the same untouched homes at the end of the day.

You are no different. You are no different, so you find comfort in the way the mountains replicate and blur at the edges of your vision, in how the fields have the same traceable dips and peaks; one endless sea of green, tide of it washing in and out with the gusts, wide enough to drown in. Relish, even, in how the cabin is always the same or always absent; door swinging, thump, thump, thump, against its frame.

Your brows raise. 

That’s new. 

The wind is warm against your back-

That’s new.

-and loud in your ears. 

It happens slowly. Imperceptible, almost. 

If you were to listen close enough, you’d be able to hear-

the baby

-the birds.

Rust in your joints flaking away. Strings snapping from your extremities. Feels odd. You imagine this is how the first two felt, eating that fruit. Suddenly without the all-knowing set of hands guiding them. You’re lighter for it. Loose, even.

And yet you don’t move. 

Thump, thump, thump. Metronomes and horse hooves and unexpected visitors.

Not immediately, at least.

The thought comes, uninvited but insistent, that, if you look away, if you blink, it’ll vanish. Haven’t felt that way when it’s not been here before, so you’re not sure why the childish—is it really, though?—idea worries you now.

Thump.

Could turn, instead. Wait for the sound to stop. Trace over the repeating ridges and cliff faces that you’ll probably never touch, never climb. 

Your foot shifts. Inches forwards. Tests whether the ground will still be there when you commit. Tests whether there’ll be some great fall-

please mind the gap

-that’ll have you slip between the layers of rock that make up the mountains.

It feels soft; the dirt. Something halfway between mud and quicksand that you decide to trust not to swallow you whole. Grass itches on every inch of your skin; never changing height, even as you follow the dips and peaks of the earth. Really does feel like you’re trekking through mud, too; feet heavy with a pair of unseen iron weights attached to them. Eyes fixed on that cabin because you’re sure—irrationally, completely—that the moment your attention slips, it’ll fold in on itself and disappear, taking whatever was inside with it. 

You’re a creature of curiosity too, after all. 

The stone porch is smooth—warm, even if shaded by the roof that covers it—beneath your feet. The wind is loud in your ears, but the moment you grab onto the door, it stops. Like someone out there’s holding their breath. 

You glance behind yourself, and see the grass still swaying. The spot where you stood doesn’t even seem that far away. 

Shrugging it off, you turn back, looking the door over; wood grain swirling like whirlpools between, under, your seven fingers and supported by a warped frame that you can’t decide is faulty workmanship or merely age. You follow it with a hand, up, up, up, until you can’t do so any further. Until being on your tiptoes, arm outstretched like a kid reaching for the not-so-hidden box of sweets, makes you feel oddly embarrassed. 

You settle back down, still eyeing the top of the frame that feels like it goes on for far too long, before your curious eyes find themselves inside the house. Streaks of sunlight cross over the innards—all an indistinct blur of worn, warm wood, slightly off-white walls and flagstone—like prying fingers, highlighting all the dust that dances between them. It all looks, feels, far too open, far too large, for the cabin’s facade. There’s two—two? Yes, two—rooms to each side of you, and a closed wooden door at the end of the hall, something long and menacing hanging above it. Worn brass handle shining like fool’s gold in the smear of wood and walls. Each time you focus more, it only seems to worsen. Grows distant. Leaves you with a mush of colour, door a mere few strides away the only thing staying definite, and the scent of pine wood at the back of your throat. Feels like trying to remember some trivial afternoon from when you were fifteen; what food you ate, what your parents were doing, how tired-

Ah, shit, sorry. I didn’t know I fell asleep.

-you were. 

You sigh, gentle without meaning to be, and your eyes begin to drift away.

And then they stop.

Catch. Get snagged on something; fish too eager for the false bait; settled in a gap of sunlight.

It reminds you of a star. One of those bright ones from a constellation you can never remember the name of. Twinkling; sparking-

phosphines dance around it

-underneath your eyelids. Colour fizzing.

You watch it. Don’t think to look away. There’s something—just something about it.

It feels familiar.

Sorry; excuse me.

Sounds familiar. Like you’re listening to a friend talk quietly in the other room.

Your hand detaches itself from the frame, reaching out, as if you could touch it.

There’s a burning on your palm-

pins and needles, pins and needles, 

-and you almost think you could hold it. Crepuscular rays beaming from between the gaps in your fingers.

Sounds,

What does it sound like?

Sounds almost like, like it’s-

-singing.

You jolt, slightly. Take a long, quiet inhale; exhale.

That’s it. It sounds like it’s singing.

↟⛰︎⛰︎⛰︎↟

Your joints are loose again. Fingers able to curl, knees able to bend, if you think hard enough about it. Creature of habit in you doesn’t like it. Whines at no longer being immovable. At the fact that you’re closer to the cabin than you’ve ever been before.

When was ‘before’?

As you flex each finger, focus on the sensation of each nodule of your spine, you watch the world from the corners of your eyes. Spy slow moving shapes that are taller than the long grass; great burly things that come paired with a ripping sound. It scares you, for a second, before you realise they’re merely cows.

Has there been one?

Bells ringing, tink, tink, as they wander. Makes you think of the triangle; played so proudly in some school performance. 

You shrug the thought off; words and letters tangling in the gentle wind. 

After you’ve managed to clench each hand into a fist, you force your eyes towards them, though, they disappear as you do. Even so, the sound of them still remains. 

You shake out each of your legs. Stiff as an old board, but just flexible enough.

One of them calls out, somewhere, and the sound makes you smile as you stagger towards the cabin. The door is open again, but, even if the wind is no different from what it was before-

There it is again.

-it makes no noise. Between the gaps in the long grass, your tanned, freckled arms reaching forward to push it out of your way, you can see it’s latched. A two-pronged ache around your ankle tells you to look down, insistent—look, check, roots, snakes—but you do just as you did before, keeping your eyes trained on the cabin. 

Strange, that is.

The birds are loud today, you think. Bright trills, layered over one another until they mix into a single, restless chorus. Beneath them, the steady, electric rasp of cicadas and crickets swells and recedes, swells and recedes, like breath pulled through unseen teeth.

You stumble somewhat on the lip of the porch—eager, why are you so eager?—but you find you could care less as you make your way towards the door. The frame somehow looks taller. Holding onto it, you lean in, mildly aware of the layer of dirt covering your soles. 

The smell is different. That’s the first thing you notice. Lungs filling up with pine—the scent fresher, now—and what you could only call your mother’s cooking. Some dish she made so particularly that you could never replicate it, though, you’re half sure your fondness of it comes from your inability to do so. Taste—smell, God, how long has it been since you’ve smelt it?—locked away in your memories. Sun-bleached blessing of nostalgia. 

Your eyes scan the place; rooms a little more defined, a little bigger. The big window in the living room is stained glass, so intricate it almost makes you frown. Panels of deep blues and greens—caricatures of what you make out to be deer and birds prancing in endless circles; fairy rings and maypoles and carousels—that send the shades scattering across the floor, definite and variegated all the same.

You get that urge again. To reach out and touch. Put it in a jar—just like you’ve done with fireflies before—and keep it with you forever.

And who are you, if not a creature of curiosity; a creature of impulse. There are rocks and twig-thin bones in your pockets—when did you pick those up?—that almost fall out as you toe off your shoes, and you have the thought to try to swallow it. The light, that is. Have yourself glow in the dark like the stars on your ceiling, like the fireflies.

The floor is cool beneath your feet as you step down, eyeing up the door on the right side—right side?—and beginning to pad quietly through the hall. Though, you suddenly find yourself cautious, peeking out from the wide doorframe to the room on the left; the kitchen. 

There’s a woman, there. Cooking. You feel—are—so, so small compared to her. Countertops a far way away.

Your grandmother. 

That’s right. 

It’s your grandmother. 

Small hands curl around the doorframe, and you feel a smile spreading across your face. Something carefree and mischievous. 

But, not your grandmother.

There’s something delicious cooking in the large, cast-iron pot she dotes on. You know it by the steam, the smell, that seeps up from the lid, heavy as smoke with nowhere to go. By the smears of chopped vegetables, by the almost empty, old container that she always keeps the good stock in. 

The rocks are heavy at your sides. Warm. Everything feels so warm.

All you can hear are the birds and the susurrous of the grass. You know she’s humming, though; can feel it in your half-formed bones, in your too small, too empty stomach. You forgot to close the door behind you, but the day is surely nice enough to leave it open just a little bit longer. 

That smile stretches wider. You found a really good one, near one of the streams. Dark grey, with warbled snakes of white running through it. You haven’t decided yet if you’ll give it to her, or save it.

You try to stifle laughter—why are you laughing? Why don’t you laugh like this, illogically and chestily, anymore?—but to no avail; she hears you. Slow, her head turns, as if she had known you to be there all along, and the sun from the large window in front of her blocks out all but her smile. 

You’ll give it to her. Hope she’ll put it up with the rest of the others you’ve found before on the mantlepiece in the living room.

Before. 

She mouths a name.

You don’t remember this before. This isn’t your before.

You don’t hear it. Only the wind in the grass. 

Only the wind in the grass. 

↟⛰︎⛰︎⛰︎↟

The empty station spans out, left and right, like a dry oesophagus. Like as if someone’s head cut clean off, so you can look right down it, right down to the stomach, if you so choose. They’ve always felt like that, to you. Like being in, being surrounded by, the twitching corpse of something that should be bleeding with life. Uncanny, really, with its still air and complete silence. Not used to it, not when your usual one is packed to the brim; stuffed with quivering bodies. Streamline of one great muscle, running through the carriages; tightening, spasming, loosening. 

Alone, truly alone—even the few cars running above you sound distant; just an echo of your breathing—you imagine yourself as the last human. Endling of the apocalypse, taking trains with no driver to nowhere in particular. Just you and the ads, pasted on the far wall. 

Wasn’t always like that. You used to have a colleague who took the line quarter way, getting off four or five stops before you to change over. Whenever you knew you’d be taking it, you’d pack up early, if only to follow them down the streets like a lost dog. Idle chit chat that never changed—it’s cold, isn’t it? Did you get through your emails? Do you ever think about walking into incoming traffic?—and always ended in awkward silence. 

You squint at the colourful posters, trying to make out the small text out of boredom. One of them has a blue and red graffiti tag plastered over it; a name you’re sure you’ve seen before.

But, it was someone. Another warm body, another set of inhales and exhales, another person to stand and sit next to for fifteen odd minutes.

You shift on your feet, knees aching. 

They stopped, though. You can never remember why.

Tired, your eyes dart to the platform display; orange dots blinking ‘delayed by ten minutes’ at you.

Your shoulder sag. Great. You can’t be bothered to wonder what it’s caused by.

You look around for a bench, but, instead, your attention snags on the sign for the bathroom, right at the end of the platform. 

Couldn’t hurt. 

Your feet begin to move, practically dragging behind you as the station stretches out, linoleum bending beneath your feet. You can’t look down, but your eyelids start sagging, and, sharp and deliberate, you try to shake the weight from your eyes. The drowsiness clings anyway, heavy at the edges of your vision.

Maybe it’s better there aren’t any benches.

The air somehow feels cooler, further along. As if you’ve separated from an invisible crowd, no longer swathed in their body heat. Though you’re at the doorway, you let your eyes linger on the tunnel; gaping wide and pitch black. The mild breeze flowing through it that almost sounds human. 

You shake your head.

That’s why you liked having someone, too. Mind too ready to fill in gaps that don’t need filling. Good some days, worse others.

You think you’ll daydream yourself to death, sometimes.

Dragging a hand down your face, you steady yourself, stepping inside. You expect the usual layout—split hallway, sanitised doors with‌ obstinate stains on their handles—but, instead, you stop. 

It’s one way. One way, with just one door.

Your brows furrow. 

Wooden; brass, shining handle. Better fit for one of the offices. 

Wooden; brass, shining handle. 

You stare at it longer than you mean to.

Why does it look familiar? 

Heedfully, you approach. Probably look dotish beyond all means, this weirded out by a bathroom door. 

The walls are a white smear around you. 

Maybe you read the sign wrong? But—no, there’s always been a bathroom here.

Little light above you flickers. 

You reach a hand out, fingers barely grazing the cold handle until there’s a hand on your shoulder and-

“-Hey.”

You jump, shoulders aching as you lift your head from the cradle of your arms, the imprint of them lingering faintly across your cheek. Bleary-eyed, you stare up at your friend, slightly hunched under the weight of their green satchel, the strap slipping down their shoulder in that same absent, habitual way it always does.

They give you somewhat of a pitying look, speaking slow and clear, “we need to go,” as if you were a child.

The office lights stutter above you. Just faint, just once, twice, casting brief, uneven shadows that make your vision lag behind itself.

It takes a few seconds for you to compute—a repeat already on their lips—before you nod, “yeah, right, sorry,” voice rough at the edges, still caught between places. Arms heavy, you begin gathering up your things, stuffing them haphazardly into your bag, a gleam of well worn brass shining in the back of your mind.

↟⛰︎⛰︎⛰︎↟

You’ve always heard the phrase that, ‘eyes are the window to the soul’, but, you think you’d argue that houses are much more so. The second most lived in thing other than a person’s own skin should surely be a good judge of character, no? Occupant odour that says more than darting or fixed pupils. Shelves cluttered with mementos that the brain has no memory of ever collecting. Home is where the heart is, or however they say.

So, standing in the cabin, well, the doorway, you wonder if it’s a reflection of yours. Slow working watercolour that takes a few train rides, a few weekends in your bed, to come to clarity. Subconscious painting the rooms in gentle strokes. Some Freudian idea that makes you shake your head as you step down into the hall. 

You pad forward, slower than slow through what feels like tar. Determined object meets unconventional force.

Still, you ask yourself if, maybe, the fact that the old armchair has moved again—got its back to the entryway, sitting closer to the wall that houses the fireplace—means you’re restless. If that one of the blinds being closed means you’re emotionally withdrawn. If one side of the living room, swathed in darkness—full of vague shapes you can’t be bothered to squint at until they become tangible—means you’re hiding something.

Mindful, you stop by the doorway to the kitchen; peering out from the edge of it, something that feels like an old habit, and checking for your—the—grandmother. You let your shoulders relax when you find that, once again, she isn’t here, and continue trudging down the hall. Determined object fighting unconventional force.

The thought drips from your ears as soon as you think it, liquid tap, tap, tapping on the hardwood floor as you approach the…end of the hall.

You frown. Look left; look right. 

Where’s it disappeared to now? 

Last time, it had split itself into thin strips, as if a log cleaved in two. Another, it wasn’t there at all. Blank plaster begging you to complete some scavenger hunt that never seems to come to fruition.

Sometimes, you think if you stare hard enough, you could will it into being. 

You throw a look over your shoulder; front door open, long grass swaying. Just like it always is.

You’re not sure why you want to find it. Or why it matters. You’ve already explored the kitchen and the living room; laughed at your stretched face on the pots which talk to you in nonsense; eyed all the books on the bowing bookshelves; spines splitting, covers curling at the edges. Some of them are already beginning to peel away, folding themselves with quiet precision into delicate, angular shapes. Origami cranes that perched, along with the many stones and small skulls, along the shelves and the floor; half-finished and fully formed alike, their paper wings twitching faintly as if caught in a breeze you couldn’t- focus.

The plaster warps back into the hallway, and somewhat jokingly—because why would it be—you look up, almost laughing to yourself when you find the door on the ceiling, slotted between some wooden beams, with the two black metal hooks set above it empty. The ones that usually hold the gun. You don’t pay its disappearance much mind, just shift your weight left, then right. Tilt your head; step forward, then back, as if a slightly different angle might make things easier for you. It doesn’t seem that far up, but, the longer you look at it, the more daunting the idea of the task seems to get. 

You swallow. 

You can do this. Easy stuff, this is. 

Somewhat confident, you bend your knees, draw in a breath, and jump. Your arm shoots upward, fingers outstretched, reaching…and you barely leave the ground. Feels like less than a centimetre. Dragged down by what feels like more force than usual, whatever ‘usual’ is. 

You glance down, if only to ensure you don’t have iron weights attached to your feet, before you try again. Really try; put as much force into it as you can.

And…you still get nowhere. Just fingers grazing the cold metal.

Slowly, you straighten, frustration tightening your face as you glare upwards, before your thoughts begin to drift sideways, searching. Catching on the chairs around the dining table.

…that would work. 

If they don’t decide to weigh ten tonnes, that is.

You turn, chairs already in your sight, but, something in the back of your head tells you to turn around. Some old creature that reminds you that, at the end of the day, you’re still an animal, and that you shouldn’t turn your back to things you don’t understand.

You don’t like it. Not here. Never here.

Still, you stop. 

You turn. 

Turn to find a chair, already perfectly placed beneath the door. 

The feeling slips off you like silk. Gathers on the floor and melts into it as you walk back towards it, placing a careful hand on the backrest as you step up. The seat lets out a low creak as you do, and you pause a moment, wary, before relaxing.

The woodgrain swirls, so close you feel as if your eye could touch it; thin film of moisture imprinted with the splinters. Muscle somewhere in your face twitches at the idea as you reach a hand towards the doorknob. You half expect it to be locked, to turn the handle only for it to stop halfway, but the latch pops out of its hole with a click, the door opening away from you, and slamming against something solid out of your sight.

A yawning, black void greets you. Darkness that swallows the space beyond the frame whole—the type of shadow that engulfs the downstairs when you turn off the light for the night.

You rise onto the tips of your toes, hands bracing against the frame, fingernails digging into the wood as you pull yourself up just enough to peer inside.

An attic is your first thought. Even if there’s never been a door to here before. Just an unseen, untouched crawl space between the ceiling and the roof, crossed with beams and insulation. The sunlight below you does nothing to illuminate it; dies where the door starts. No vague outlines, no streaks of it creating thick bands of dust.

You almost convince yourself that you can see something. That if you just squint hard enough, it’ll form something familiar. 

It doesn’t. 

You reach a hesitant hand upwards, hoping to find a roof you can’t see, only to touch air. Your arm stays curiously bright, as if still lit up by the daylight. It’s brought back down after a moment, after you hear it. A low droning sound. Like white noise—like far off helicopter blades spinning. Swarm of something approaching, or keeping its distance. Paired with some familiar smell that you can’t put a word to. Makes that aged animal in you kick its hind legs at your adrenal gland. 

Between the hum, you swear you can hear voices. Mumbled nonsense of a crowd; harsh. Laughing. Paranoia of those behind you; sure they’re snickering at you.

You stretch yourself further, ankles straining. 

Sounds like there’s someone crying, too. Wet, throaty thing—sobs stuffed too far down their oesophagus—that makes your own chest tighten.

The chair rocks; unsteady.

Is there someone up here? What is that smell?

You open your mouth, but, before you know it, you’re falling; hands slipping as the chair tumbles from beneath you, door almost slamming shut on your fingers. Fast as a weight in water, you’re dragged down, head cracking on the-

-you gasp, breath filling up your lungs, harsh and fast, as if you’ve been holding it. Blindly, your hands clutch at the duvet, bunching the fabric into balls as you huff into the darkness. Beads of sweat trickle down the ridges of your spine, and you feel each one.

Your hand comes up to your head without thinking, pressing hard at your temple as if it can relieve the ache pounding just beneath the skin, and coming away from it slick with something. 

Your stomach drops.

You stare at the vague shape of your hand, placed millimetres from your face. Feel your hot breath against it.

Too quickly, almost violently, you turn, fumbling for the lamp at your bedside. Your fingers miss it once, twice—something is wrong; wrong, wrong, wrong—before finally catching the switch, light flooding the room.

You blink against it, eyes burning, breath still uneven, and look down again.

Your hand.

Just…sweat. Shiny in the light, damp across your skin, catching in the lines of your palm.

Nothing else.

The ball of tension leaves you all at once, not gone but somewhat unknotted; just enough for you to slump back into your cushions, long breath escaping you.

You decide to not search out the door again, after that.

↟⛰︎⛰︎⛰︎↟

There is someone here, and it is wrong. Some tall silhouette—too tall, much too tall for the grandmother—against your sweeping green fields. Posed in front of the cabin in a way that, even from this distance, makes them seem surprised. Uncomfortable. 

There is someone here, and it is wrong. Has you cautiously—you hate this feeling, hate the stones in your gut; not here, never here—eyeing them. Tracing over their figure; built sharp and broad, like the peaks that surround you. Back straightening as they stare, you’re sure, right at you.

It’s not a pleasant gaze. Somewhere between annoyed, startled and intrigued; pointed nonetheless. Makes your shoulders raise. Makes you wish your collarbones could fold, that you could disappear into your own body. Better yet, disappear into the mountain behind you. Turn bone to limestone, smelt muscle into gneiss. Have your eyes be the knots in the pine trees, your fingers the creeping streams.

Yet all you do is shift on your feet. Sway with the wind; pretend to be another blade of grass, and hope they don’t approach. 

The birds are singing. Loud. Little black arrows darting above and between the two of you. Almost masks the sound of their—his—voice.

“...Hallo? Geht, uhm,” he clears his throat, “geht es dir gut?”

He does not sound how you expect him to. No granite gravel to his tone; raspy, sure—like a man who has spent too much of his life shouting—but, beneath that, something thin and wavering. Not unpleasant, though, weaved with the birdsong.

You watch as he tilts his head before stepping off the porch—the long grass looks like it barely reaches his knees—and repeating himself. Words bouncing off the cliff-side—a sprinkle of dirt taps your shoulder, though you pay it no mind—as he approaches. It doesn’t take long for him to do so; disappearing in a valley inside a valley and appearing much too close, much too fast. Tall as a lone pine, stood in an empty field. Your first thought is that maybe he really is made from a piece of the mountains. Old spirit come to greet you, or tell you that you’re no longer welcome. That this has never been ‘yours’ in the first place. You bristle at the idea.

“Bist du verloren?” He calls, tilting his head again, and you shake your own, eyes glued to him, though you don’t know exactly what you’re giving an answer to. 

Your second is that the loose, black t-shirt—though its sleeves hug his biceps—and dirtied cargos make him all too human.

Gentle, controlled, he throws a thumb over his shoulder in some direction you can’t see, don’t know. Don’t want to look away from him. “Ich könnte dich zurück in die Stadt,” a tremor in his voice when he adds on, “wenn du möchtest.”

Your third, raising its ugly head once he’s two metres or so away and trying to get your calcified leg muscles to move, is that he is terrifying. Ghoulish in his smear of a face; only thing remaining one blurred, blue eye. Not the colour of the sky, not sun-stained summer memories, but rather that of the sea. Drop-off point from the docks where you can no longer spy the sandy bottom; just your reflection, and whatever it is you imagine is staring back up at you. 

You take a step back, nails digging into your palm. Don’t like this feeling. Not here; never here. 

He stops, fingers of one hand fiddling, though he keeps his eye pinned on you. Searching. 

The birds are singing. The birds and singing, and it’s all you want to hear. Want to swallow their tune and take flight with them. 

Slight, your knees bend, foot posed away from him. His eye too focused on your face—wide, wide-eyed, like a kid who’s seeing their old favourite toy for the first time in years—to notice.

Again he tilts his head—must be a habit of his—before he mumbles, “Du kommst mir bekannt vor…” to himself and takes a sharp step forward, hand out to placate, to touch, to grab, you don’t know what. All you know is that it makes blood rush in your ears and kicks your legs into overdrive. 

All you know is that this almost faceless man scares you, and you need to run. 

You need to run, are running, but you feel as if you’re going nowhere. 

The long grass lashes at you as you push through it, stalks slapping against your arms, your face—stinging, God that stings—and legs.

Why does it hurt so much?

Every step drags, thick and slow, as though the air itself has turned to molasses. Time space continuum warping, if only to try to drag you backwards; determined object meets unconventional force. 

He calls after you, maybe running after you—you don’t know, don’t want to know. His voice slips between your ragged breaths, threads through the birdsong, the restless hiss of wind through the grass. It seeps into everything—into the rhythm of your pulse, into the rush of blood in your ears—not here, never here.

The grass grows taller.

Just keep-

running,

-running. 

And taller. 

Just keep-

Your chest hurts.

-running. 

Until it swallows you whole—an endless green maze, parting just enough to let you through, offering no direction, no left or right, only forward. Always forward.

Your eyes sting. The stalks scratch and bite, and finally, you shut them.

You keep running anyway.

Blind.

Running, running—until your foot catches, 

catches, 

and you pitch forward-

-but your head never meets the ground.

Slowly, you peel your eyelids away from their lower counterparts, feeling the skin stick as you do. Worried for less than a second that they won’t come apart, until you find yourself standing where you always seem to be, staring at your fields; illuminated in a dull, blueish tone by a moon you cannot see. Night sky full of falling stars—that, once they dive into your vision, burn up into fireflies that weave between the stalks—like a great cloak pulled over the valley.

The cabin is still there, too. Two storied—this is wrong, something tells you—and red-roofed; reflecting the moonlight. Front door closed, though, a square of your sunlight remains in one of the windows.

Your chest aches. 

You think you could drink it, if you truly wanted to.

Your legs burn.

Maybe you should. 

A gust of wind blows from behind you, biting at your neck. Creature of habit whines in your ear that it doesn’t like the dark. Doesn’t like that you’re no longer being invited in. Creature of curiosity wants you to move forward—explore just as you did before. This is no different. There is no man, here. 

As far as you know.

Nothing to be afraid of.

You take in a stuttering breath, trying to even out your inhales and exhales. Cold air stinging your dry throat, but soothing the burn in your chest. Count each one while you watch a constellation fall and crumble like wet paper.

Move. 

A muscle in your leg twitches. Inhale; exhale.

Move.

And you almost do, if not for the sudden tug at your hand. 

Spine calcified straight, you look downwards, if only to find a young boy holding onto it. By his height, you’d think him to be a teenager, though his face tells you he can’t be older than twelve. Fat in his cheeks that hasn’t dropped off yet; freckles dusting his nose. Eyes fixed on the cabin.

You have the odd feeling that you know him.

His fingers tighten, subconsciously attempting to get a better grip. Sweaty in the way all children’s hands seem to be.

You look away from him, back to the house. 

“Are you afraid of him?” The words feel like a monumental effort to whisper, to shape your mouth properly around the vowels, ‘as well’ going unsaid. The boy does not seem to notice, merely glancing up and nodding in the corner of your eye. You give a slight nod yourself; solemn agreement as you feel yourself sinking. 

“Ich will keine Angst haben.” He mumbles, sniffling. Like he’s sharing a secret. You feel his fingers slipping, and another hand attach itself to your leg. Grass roots curl around your calves. “Er sagt mir ich solle keine haben.”

The light in the window goes out. You think you can hear an owl.

A flint digs into your thigh, and you watch again as he looks up at you. Deep blue eyes searching for something.

“Kannst du meine Hand weiter halten?” You look down, ignoring as something slimy wriggles across your torso. He looks away as soon as you do. “Es macht mich weniger verängstigt.”

Once more, you nod, though, his head has already been swallowed up by the earth. 

As loam fills your mouth, you can still feel him, holding your…

…hand.

↟⛰︎⛰︎⛰︎↟

He is a starer—something you learn very quickly. Stick man against lime and emerald; almost always posed as if you’ve managed to catch him off guard. Just entering or leaving the—or, his, you suppose—cabin, one foot on the porch, other on the grass. Stock still, as if you’re a skittish ground bird that’ll go scurrying, singing its warning call, the moment he cocks his head.

Sometimes, he sits. Hands clasped between his legs, staring outwards—unblinkingly, you know it’s unblinkingly; you do your best to stare the same way back—as if he’s waiting for something. 

Today is one of those days, and you’re half sure that ‘something’ is you.

It feels as if a standoff. As if you both have old pistols, ready to be drawn at a moment’s notice. Shoot fast and clean, even from what feels like hundreds of metres away. Wait to see whose fingers twitch first; who shoots for the heart and who shoots for the sky. Makes you think of the gun; the one above the door at the end of the hall. Mean, well-oiled thing that he can probably reach without having to strain a muscle. 

Eyes watering, you squint; unmovable object meets unmovable object. Stubborn mule against the world. You want to squash him like a bug, even if it does feel like he’s trying to burn a hole into your forehead. You wonder if he’d make the same sized cavity with a bullet. Maybe he’d take a few to your legs. Make you struggle.

You want to bury your head in the dirt. He perks up like he can hear the thought; knows you’ll give up. Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet. 

Nausea creeps up from your stomach. 

Don’t blink, don’t blink, don’t blink.

Not here, never here. He shouldn’t be here. 

Scowling, you blink, rapid, attempting to get the itch out of your eye as the grass blurs below you.

Thirteen to seventeen. You think.

↟⛰︎⛰︎⛰︎↟

The valley is empty. 

You frown. 

The valley is empty. The cabin still stands, just as it has as of recent, but he is nowhere to be seen. Is not lingering halfway between the front door and the porch, is not standing like a forgotten statue between the blades of long grass; is not staring from one of the windows.

He could be inside, sure, just hidden from your sight, but that old animal in you tells you he isn’t. Gone with the wind, maybe. Bulk of him somehow picked up by a strong breeze, or perhaps, you smile to yourself, the birds. 

You look up. They’re not here today, either, instead replaced by a light dusting of clouds—thick ones that are too white to be threatening—that cast soft, wandering shadows across the grass below you. High and mighty and pleased up on your little hill. Skin warmed as one of them passes you by, and sunlight settles on your skin once more. 

Head tipped back, eyes closed, a grin pulling at your mouth, you let yourself bask in it; just for a moment. Taste UV rays on your tongue and listen to the distant song of solar flares that sounds like cicadas and barbeques and long drives home. Almost palpable, and yet, not quite. At the tip of your tongue, maybe. Peace and quiet and nobody but you.

You open your eyes again and lower your gaze, drowsy with delight.

Maybe you should walk around today?

You find your legs half-lost in the grass, feet almost swallowed by the long, whispering stalks.

You want to run. You feel like running, just for the sake of it. Haven’t really wanted to do that since you were twelve. You don’t remember when you stopped feeling so lively.

The thought lingers, until something catches your eye, just off to the side.

A shape in the grass.

Fabric.

A large wad of it; light grey and folded over itself in a lumpy oval. 

Creature of habit starts whining again. Creature of curiosity has you crouch down, spreading the stalks out so you can get a better look, fingers cautiously unfolding it.

Something in you says it’ll be a head. Just something dead and macabre and nauseating. You smother it, because not here, never here.

The grass is loud in your ears. Tickling the shell of them, brushing against the back of your neck. You think you could drown here if you tried hard enough. 

Gentle, you unfurl the last corner, and are pleased, yet confused, to see a loaf of bread—circular, covered in a heavy dusting of flour that traces the splits of its brown surface—paired with a small square of paper; white as chalk. 

You shift your weight, brows furrowed as you pick it up, flipping it over to reveal the words, ‘Wie heißt…’ you squint, bringing the paper closer, ‘...what’s your name?’

Your hackles raise, head jutting upwards, just peaking above the grass to look around you, to look at the cabin.

The valley is empty. Just as it should be.

Hesitant, you lower your gaze once more, tracing each letter. It’s somewhere between cursive and chicken scratch; remains of fine loops tangled in rough, uneven strokes.

‘What’s your name?’

Your frown deepens. 

You could ask him the same thing. 

The idea settles. Sticks like rainwater to your scalp.

Your eyes flick between the loaf and the note, and, then, as if placed there just for you, you notice a pen, cap clip of it broken and half the length it should be, nestled neatly beside them.

How convenient.

You reach for it, thumbing off the black lid. The plastic clicks softly as you pull it free, and you hesitate only a moment before pressing the tip to paper.

‘Who are you?’

You write it just beneath the original line, before placing it, along with the pen, onto the fabric—a fresh tea towel, you suppose—next to the loaf of bread. Stare as the breeze folds its corners with careful consideration, until it becomes the tips of a pair of angular, white wings, a pointed head, and an arrowhead for a tail, words scattered across its body. It trembles for a moment, as if finding its balance, before a strong gust catches it, lifting it cleanly from the grass and having it fly right over your head, words unravelling and trailing behind it like the string of a kite.

You turn to watch it, a smile spreading across your face as it does loops, hand itching to take hold of the letters that smear pen lines across your cheek. The sun, bouncing off ‌its wings, turns it, if but for a few moments, into one of the many paper airplanes you made when you were younger—snub nosed from all the plunges they took—as it soars towards the cabin. 

The thought comes that you always wanted to fly. That perhaps you should try sometime soon.

Descending, it does one more loop, folding and unfolding into a bird once more as the ink wraps itself back around the paper, before shimmying under the gap of the closed front door.

And then it is over. You wish you had more paper. 

The grin sticks to your face as you look back down towards the bread and, somewhat against your better judgement, you rip a chunk off.

Your eyes move back towards the cabin, watching. 

With your other hand, you rip off a smaller piece, and pop it into your mouth. Dense, tough bread becoming mush between your molars.

You wonder where he’s gone. 

You chew through it easy enough, thick thing that you struggle to swallow before you tear another lump and start again.

Think, for a second, that maybe he’s like-

You.

-something brushes your lips. A faint tickle. You swipe at it absently with your thumb, barely thinking.

Whatever that means.

You take another bite.

It comes back. Subtle writhing against the inside of your cheek.

You pause.

Frown.

Slowly, you slide your thumb and forefinger into your mouth, fishing out a clump of softened bread, and, there it is, caught in the mush.

An ant, twitching.

↟⛰︎⛰︎⛰︎↟

There’s a lump between you and the cabin. 

At first, hand on your brow to cast a shadow over your eyes, you think it to be a rock. Smoothed over from being laid by some river for the past forever. You can hear them, sometimes—the little gurgling creeks and streams that rush onward just out of your sight.

Maybe one is here now, you think, as you amble towards it. Carved and inched its way through the rock and the dirt and the grassroots to be here. Dragged life along with it.

Your gaze flicks to the cabin, lingering a moment, before falling back to your feet.

Fish, maybe.

The grass wraps around your stomach, and you can’t decide whether it’s pleasant or asphyxiating. 

You think they’ll be little silver things. Sharp as flint and as shiny as lost rings. Little schools of them darting in the air, in the corner of your eye, scales shining something prismatic in the sunlight. Beady black eyes that stare and say they know your name without you needing to speak it. 

Mindful, you raise your arms above the grass, trudging through it, disturbing the fine silt as you do while your eyes stay focused on the maybe-maybe-not rock. Don’t feel cold even if the water begins to get up to your mid-thigh.

The birds are back. They sing the same song they always do. You’ll never tire of it. Not here.

You wonder what type they are. If they stay here year round, or only appear in the summer. Sing just for whoever takes the time to listen. If you were greedy, you’d say, hope, that they sing only for you.

You’re not allowed to be greedy, often. Maybe you can have this for once.

Your head trails downwards as you approach the maybe-maybe-not rock, in a clearing of the reeds. 

The memory of the man sours that thought.

Careful, you reach down into the pristine water, disturbing the fine white sand, littered with pebbles, and grab hold of…fabric.

Pulling it above the water, edges of it dripping but in no way soaked, you realise it’s the same tea towel from last time. Top tied in what attempts to be a neat bow. 

As you begin to unravel it, you wonder what’ll be in it this time.

Unsurprisingly, you find another loaf of bread, surface of it rough with seeds, a small red pile of something—strawberries? Yes, strawberries; perfectly red, probably perfectly sweet—a pen, and another note. Slotted between the bread and the berries.

There’s a small, short moment where you want to cast it into the water. Watch it sink and watch the ink bleed. That, maybe, if you stop talking to him, he’ll leave you be. King of the Hill doesn’t like people near his peak. 

Even so, you still cradle the bread and fruit with one arm, mindful not to let any fall, before picking up and unfolding the sheet with your free hand. 

I am a ghost, perhaps. Echo of some other thing-

Dreamer.

-That’ll fade away, soon.

I am King here, maybe. 

I am no-one. 

The same handwriting greets you, somewhat finer than last; ‘If I give you my name, would you give me yours?’

Your shoulders sag. Another question instead of an answer. 

Though, you suppose, you’d done the exact same to him.

Struggling for a moment, you lay the small sheet of paper atop the loaf, pinning it in place with a finger stretched five joints long, and reach for the pen. The clip on the lid is broken, plastic chewed up by anxious or absent teeth, but you pop it off easy enough, leaving it to rest within the berries. 

The tip of it hovers above the note, at first. Don’t know-

Name, what’s your name?

-how to reply. Perhaps another question. You think you’ll never get anywhere if you do. Never getting anywhere means more probing, or, peace and quiet for the King of The Hill.

The pen shifts in your grip, writhing faintly, like something caught. You tighten your fingers around it, steadying the movement, and lower it to the page, letters come out uneven.

‘Maybe.’

For a split second, that impulse comes back. To rip it up into tiny shreds, to scribble all over it, to crumple it into a ball and watch it sink. 

But you’re a creature of curiosity. Grown so big as of recent that it smothers the one of habit more often than not. You’re a creature of curiosity, so, after capping the pen, you manage to fold the paper in half and slot it among a clump of dense, soft-tipped reeds. Downy feathers swaying in the breeze. 

You keep an eye on it. Watch and wait—with what you’d call excitement; because you know, you remember this—for the wind to fold it into something twitching with life. Wonder what it’ll turn into this time. A fish, to pair with all the little shoals that dart between your legs, maybe.

Subtle, you shift. Try to get a pebble to stop digging into your foot. 

Nothing happens. Stays just as it is. 

Your lips press together in somewhat childish disappointment, looking down at the food cradled in your arm.

He’ll find it either way, you’re sure. 

Slow and absent-minded, you pick at the fruit, choosing one of the bigger ones. Its seeds look like tiny hearts.

You look back up at the cabin. The door is still closed.

You bring it up to your mouth, taking a bite-

You’re not sure if you want it to stay that way.

-and frowning at the sour taste. You swallow it nonetheless.

↟⛰︎⛰︎⛰︎↟

The beetle’s black carapace shines like the innards of an abalone shell as it climbs, small step by small step, across the treacherous landscape that is the ground below you. You’ve watched it tip itself over twice—once on a small rock, the other on a twig—and, again, twice, right itself quickly enough without your help. Its thirteen eyes, scattered across where you guess its wings to be hidden, stared at you with what you’d call annoyance each time it happened. Giant laid flat across the ground, resting your head against your forearm, doing nothing but watching. You wonder if this is what it’s like to be God. 

Languidly, you blink, pushing yourself up just enough for you to squint over the grass. 

Your—the—lump of tea towel, the probable loaf of bread and the likely note, is sat on the porch. Reminds you of someone trying to draw a stray dog into a kennel. Too close for your liking. Makes the old animal in you raise its hackles, even if you’ve been complaisant before. 

‘Curiosity killed the cat’ is what you’ve been telling yourself for the past who knows how long. Watching your beetle, listening to your birds, soaking up the sun that never moves. 

This is how it’s meant to be. Shoulder muscles loose-

Throat without the phlegm and itch.

-creature of habit at ease-

No weights hanging by your eyelids telling you to get back into bed and not get up again.

-and yet.

You frown at the cabin between the blades of grass. 

There’s still that tug. Gentle thing wrapped around some bone that tells you to move. Tells you that sure, curiosity killed the cat, but the satisfaction brought it back. 

You swipe the lingering dirt and gravel off ‌your cheek as you stand. 

That’s all you’ve done, here, anyways. Indulge. 

Pins and needles; pins and needles.

You just want to see the note. Just want an answer, that’s all. 

The wind blows harsh against the grass as you pass through it, stalks merely caressing your face no matter how hard the tempest pulls and pushes them. You hope your beetle hasn’t fallen on its back again. There’s not a cloud in the sky, and the ground is almost bone dry beneath your feet, yet you still smell petrichor. That fresh scent that makes your bones feel full of down feathers rather than marrow. 

You dip into a small ditch, earth oscillating backwards beneath you for a moment, before stretching back out. Breathing with you.

Absent-mindedly, you wonder if it’ll rain here sometime soon. If it rains here at all. You have this feeling that it’d be something mighty. Sheets of rain that would turn the world white; thunder that could rattle your bones; lightning splitting the sky; earth itself grumbling with the sheer force. 

You thwack a taller than usual grass strand away from you, though it swings right back, sticking to your face for a moment before you carry on.

You always wanted to see one like that. Vast storm carrying so much water you could drown in it. Enough that it could fill up the valley-

The streets.

-and leave you stranded up on your little peak. Drenched and isolated and safe. Watching the glow of the clouds as the lightning fractures between them. You used to hear stories about things, people, who’d been struck by it. Still can’t help but think about what it would feel like; to have something so immense tear right through you, pure energy flooding your veins. Blaze of it all like roots spreading under your skin. Every dark corner illuminated all at once. 

Almost there, now.

Light at the end of the tunnel. 

Almost there.

You step with more care as you approach the porch; subconsciously lowering yourself closer to the ground. Eyes flicking between the tea towel and the open door. Back of your head tells you that you look a bit of an idiot, a paranoid idiot, but you still can’t help but feel a bit like a pheasant in a wheat field.

The gun, still hung above the door at the end of the hall, only brings you a little comfort. 

A step before the porch, you pause. Listening. 

Wind in the grass. Birds. 

Just wind in the grass. Just birds.

You’re sure that if he is watching you, he’s having a right laugh to himself.

Slow, you crouch, stretching an arm out and dragging the lump towards you, a few droplets of water slipping off you as you do. 

You just want to read this damn note. Know who he is, so you can tell him to leave you and your beetle and your birds and your long grass and your valley alone. Tell him that you only want this to yourself. 

Tell him you’re being greedy, just this once, and the King of the Hill doesn’t want any Pretenders. 

Eager, you unwrap the fabric—another bow; better than the last—and let your eyes scan over the contents. Loaf of bread, clumps of colours—berries, more berries—and…no note.

You purse your lips. Surely not. 

You lift the loaf—feels like an unpicked scab on the pads of your fingers; white dust coating them—and, again, find nothing other than crumbs. Not even a pen.

Damnnit. Damnnit, damnnit, damnnit.

Your shoulders sag, loaf still cradled in your hands. 

Why are you even so annoyed? He’s not here. He’s not ‘talking’ to you—isn’t that what you want?

The rustle of paper makes your head dart up. 

Your heart seizes a moment—stop it, stop it, stop it—but it settles once your eyes catch on a familiar paper bird. Innocent, it sits, perched in the doorway, beady eyes made of full stops and wing feathers textured with commas. Scribbles of words strewn across its body. 

Ah, you think, gently setting the loaf down and keeping your eyes on it. That’s where it is.

With a quick flick, it turns its head to stare at you with one eye, small folds of paper unravelling and settling back into place. It doesn’t have feet that you can see, but you imagine it’d be shifting on them. Constant twitching that all songbirds seem to do. 

You stare at it a moment, before glancing down at the bread, and prying off a few crumbs, sending them across the porch with a gentle throw. 

It doesn’t move. Doesn’t even stop staring at you. 

You try tossing over a few berries and…again, no luck. 

Slouching, you think it over. Could try whistling, or…

…you realise very quickly that you have to be careful about this. 

As slow as you can, you step up onto the porch, an odd sense of giddiness filling your stomach. 

Vaguely, you think you understand housecats. 

Each step you take, you crouch lower, preparing to attempt to cup it in your palms, somehow. 

You just need it…to stay…still…

Just as you reach for it—gentle as you can be; you don’t want to crush it—a sudden gust rises at your back; pushing you onto your knees. It snatches the little thing away, leaving your hands to close around nothing but air.

It darts down the hallway, sailing on the gust, and scrambling to your feet, you follow. Frustration blooms in you—dull sting in your knee only emphasising it—as you give chase. 

You have this horrible hunch that you’ll never catch it. 

You follow it to the living room, weaving between furniture, steps uneven as you keep your eyes on the not-so-little dark brown and paper white-bellied bird. Afraid that the moment you don’t, you’ll find it on the other side of the room. 

But, the feeling softens. Lets you slip into a wide smile and you almost want to laugh.

This feels familiar.

You stumble around a chair as you reach upwards to the bowing bookcases, mindful of all the knicknacks placed at the edges, and for a moment, just a moment, you swear you feel it. Soft brush of flight feathers against your plaster-bound fingertips.

Then, it’s gone again; back into the hall, you on its tail. Hope, for a moment, that it’s gone back out the front door, but, instead, it moves to the kitchen.

You just want to get the poor thing out. You’re tall, but not tall enough. Never the right height for anything. 

Above you, it loops wide, restless arcs overhead as you stand in the middle of it all, turning, unsure where to reach, where to be. Making yourself dizzy as you spin, still trying to keep your eye on it. Think maybe you should get up on the counters, then, then you’d be tall enough-

-A soft hollow, thump breaks your line of thought.

You think it was one of its wings, just clipping the ceiling lamp. Makes you think of that phrase; ‘fly too close to the sun’. She-

Who? Ah, of course,

-taught you that. You still want to try to swallow it.

Slow, it spirals down, unsteadily, before falling noiselessly—as does your bout of joy—into one of the many bowls on the counter. 

It does not twitch. 

Somewhat guiltily, you approach, picking it out of the red clump—red, red, it’s red—of seeds—pomegranate; that’s all it is, calm down—and looking around at the other bowls as you unfold it, remorseful ‘sorry’ mouthed out as you do. Clumps of earth reside in some of them; grass still sprouting. Others, leaves pile high, a sweet scent wafting up, mingling with pine and sweat. 

Smells lived in, now. 

Between it all, there’s two plates left out, edges of them finely decorated with dancing rams, deer and birds.

You’re not sure how you feel about it. 

Finally undoing the last fold, you look back down, anticipation making you feel light once more; a feeling that, again, falls flat as you see the scribbles. Letters and words in three different colours loop around themselves, and no matter how you turn the page, trying to follow them, they never stay still long enough to become comprehensible. You’re not really sure they are words, if you’re honest. Maybe the remains of them; crossed out and blurred with the juice of the pomegranate seeds.

You slouch, letting the paper fall to the counter. 

No answers for you, then. 

The annoyance comes back. Simmers. The sunlight from the window in front of you hurts your eyes, so you lower your gaze. Glare at the seeds before reaching down, impulsively, and popping one into your mouth.

Tart, but sweet, you think, reaching for another. 

↟⛰︎⛰︎⛰︎↟

“Have you had any recurring dreams recently?”

“Hm?” Your friend doesn’t turn to you when you speak, merely shifting the bag on their shoulder. One of them bows down further than the other. Creature of habit.

“Recurring dreams.” You move a hand to shift the strap back up. “Have you had any?”

Humming to themselves, they look upwards, as if the pristine white ceiling holds their answer. You watch your silhouettes in the window. Looks like the two of you are walking in a black hole. Always too fucking bright in here.

“Oh! I’ve been having this one where I’m naked, and back at school, for some reason.” They slip through the door, wood almost smacking your face in the process as you follow them out. “Always in my maths class, too…” they add, quietly.

Your footsteps are muted against the carpet as you pad towards the elevator; another door among many. “Any…any vivid ones?”

They stab at the call button with their pointer finger. They’ve been biting their nails again. “I think being stark naked in my secondary school maths class is pretty vivid.” They let out a laugh at the end, pressing on the button a second, then a third time. It glows a tired orange and somewhere behind the wall you hear the elevator wake; cables shifting, machinery humming its slow climb towards you. 

“No, no, like…” You trail off, scratching the back of your neck. “Nevermind.”

“Why?” The elevator arrives with a soft ding and parts its doors as they give you a sidelong glance. “You dreaming about your teeth falling out again?”

You watch your feet for a moment. Eye your scuffed shoes and wriggle your toes just to make sure they’re still there until you step in with them, shrugging. The door closes shut in front of you with a sigh that sounds closer to a death rattle and you listen as they repeatedly press the button for the ground floor. Little click, click, click, like someone’s trying to jimmy open a lock. Like keyboard clatter. You wonder what they’d do if you started bashing your head into the wall. 

The light moves down one button. Then another.

“Ah, by the way,”

You turn your head to look at them. “Yeah?”

The orange skips a floor, just like it always does. 

“Do you think you can stay late tomorrow?”

You can’t tell whether the pit in your stomach is hunger, the taste of berries and bread thick at the back of your throat, or anxiety. 

The doors open with a mechanical thump, both of you stepping out and moving towards the glass front doors. 

“...Why?”

“My friend from downstairs has an appointment she can’t really miss. She asked me,”  they pull out their keycard and swipe it, opening the office doors with a light beep that still vaguely reminds you of your alarm. They slip through and, again, you follow. “But I can’t, so I promised to ask you, since you’re always doing, like, nothing, ha.”

By the time you’re out on the street, your feet have already taken over, carrying you toward the station without asking permission. You keep your eyes fixed ahead.

Around you, office windows burn in stacked rows, glowing through the evening like false stars.

You haven’t seen a constellation in what feels like years.

“Sure.” You sigh out.

Just perpetual dusk, stretched too thin over everything.

“You hear about the bug going around?” They note, absentmindely. You shake your head. Try to figure out if what you're looking at is a star or a telephone pole. “Half of upstairs is off with it.” Your shoulders sag at their words. There’s someone laughing further down the street.  “Apparently it’s doing the rounds in a bunch of the other buildings, too.” 

They go quiet after that, and, again, you nod—though, you’re not really sure at what—and listen, then watch, as they shift their bag’s strap again. “I think you need to get a new bag.”

They shrug, settling their hands into their pockets. “Nah. I like this one too much.”

↟⛰︎⛰︎⛰︎↟

You’ve been standing in front of the door from the end of the hall for a few minutes, now. Eyeing the grooves like riptides and trying to find an angle where your face looks like yours in the worn brass of the handle. 

It’s the only thing left of the cabin. No rubble, no grass-eaten foundation; not a shard of stained glass. Just the door, and the frame it stands in.

Wary, you squint at it, counting the precise, almost unnoticeable etches in the wood. Six, twelve, fourteen, and they breach the frame, climbing to the clouds in little white scratches that twitch in the sunlight. You bend your neck as far as you can to follow them, right until the birds flutter in the eye of the sun, and you have to blink out rainbows of colour that dance like rabbits in between the blades of grass. 

This has happened before. 

You lean on one leg, to peek around it on one side. 

Not exactly like this—but things have changed. The cabin has come and gone. 

Then, you lean on the other, doing the same. 

So, you’re not sure why what you’d call anxiety is writhing in your stomach. 

It casts no shadow across the land behind it. 

What you get for being a creature of habit, you guess. 

Frowning, you look over your shoulder. 

You’re alone. Just like you were last time.

You turn your head back towards the door. You turn and you still have that nagging feeling. Everything is as it should be, and you still want more. More answers, more tea towels to unravel, more food for you to barely eat. 

Maybe this is his answer, you think. 

You also think you’re a hypocrite. Same reason why you shake your head and face back towards the valley. Begin walking forward, following the same dips and the same small hills you always have, keeping your eye pinned forward. Pinned on your spot.

You wonder if your beetle will be there again. Maybe there’ll even be two—a pair of big ones with eyes like black holes and carapace like an oil spill. Chittering in old tongues with the crickets. You wonder what they talk about; what the birds talk about. Wonder how hard you’d have to strain your ears to pick the words, even if there are any, up. Maybe all they have are music notes; E minors and C majors that curl in on themselves like woodlice, that perch themselves across the tips of the grass and slowly melt down them like ink until they disappear into the air. Sung and chatted once more a few seconds later.

Maybe they talk about you. Maybe him. Probably the good food they found an hour ago. Probably laughing at the fact that you haven’t moved one step forward. 

You stop. Feels like your eye is about to start twitching as you throw a somewhat hesitant look over your shoulder.

The door is still there. Still right there. 

You, nor it, has moved a metre.

Jaw tense, you turn, practically stomping back towards it because fine. If it means you can have your normal back, if this satiates your curiosity once and for all, then fine.

Your hand wraps around the brass, warm, and you swing it wide open, only for it to lead to a dark room, vaguely silver toned in its moonlit partiality. Sharp lines of vague furniture—shelf, cabinet, desk, wardrobe, bed, man-

-you freeze. Shoulders tighten up; feels like they shoot right up to your ears as you close the door slightly, subconsciously attempting to shield yourself. Scared of the towering pine tree of a man who stares at you, wide eyed—whites of them like distant moons—from his bed. He’s sat up half way, like he was in the middle of turning over, though, leg muscles twitching, you have this odd feeling that he’s been awake for a long while. Like a kid trying to catch the tooth fairy in the act. 

You can hear him breathe. Feel him breathe like his inhales are your own, and this room is too dark, too quiet and too small for the both of you. 

Even so, you stare back. Just as unblinkingly as he does. Feels wrong. You don’t like that you can see his eyes, never moving from yours. Black as tar; black as the midnight zone. Place not made for you—not enough oxygen, not enough light, just distant pulsing sparks that are either stars or the bulb of an anglerfish. 

You don’t like it one bit. 

“You…” he begins, suddenly, his voice raspy, heavy, with sleep and something in you bristles. “You can come in.”

It’s an odd statement. Odd request. Maybe he was asleep, you think. Dragged out of dreams and spouting nonsense.

You don’t. Just feel your fingers twitch and you go to close the door, but-

“Nein, n-no, no, bitte.” He sits up properly, and it makes you freeze again. Something with too many ribs and too little eyes drifts past the two of you and there’s a bit of desperation in his tone that you can’t figure out, still holding his gaze but being nowhere near eye to eye. “You, you can, uhm,” he stumbles over his words, “You can stay, too. You can stay as long as you want.”

Your brows furrow. Amorphous thing barely outlined by the moonlight slowly floating by you. I am King, here, says the man who wants, has, everything. Your hill included. 

“My Oma would hate me for that.” He lets out a nervous chuckle at the end, like he’s only half sure he should have said that aloud. Big man who doesn’t like the quiet, mumbling, “But you’re not mean. You never have been,” to himself that you still hear clear as day. 

You can feel the sun burning your neck. Stops where the door starts but still lights up the dust motes and makes them look like hundreds of tiny animals, glowing.

“Do you like the food?” He starts up again, and though you can’t see his face, you can tell by his eyes—and his voice—that he has a somewhat sad, somewhat hopeful smile on his face. The duvet is halfway off him and his shirt is rolled up so you can see the bare outline of his stomach and the sun is burning you alive. “I-I can try something else if you don’t.”

You don’t know what to do. That long thing with all those ribs weaves past you again and you don’t know if you should shake your head or nod or shout at him or shout at yourself or close the damn door.

“König.” He breaks your train of thought again, vowels falling pleasantly from his mouth. Sounds more like an exhale than a word. “You wanted one, ja? A name—my name. König. You- you can call me König.” 

….there’s your answer, you guess. König.

That shapeless thing—a jellyfish, has to be a jellyfish—glides by. There’s a lot of them, now.

He’s leaning forward somewhat. Expectancy; excitement. 

Curiosity. 

There’s your answer, there’s half of all you wanted, and your throat is dry as ash, but you still open your mouth, whispering, “Y/N,” because that was the deal, after all, while you try to crush the doorknob under your hands.

You watch his eyes widen; probably his smile too. “Y/N,” he repeats. Tests the word out a few times; says it so soft and gentle—accent tilting it just right—that it fills your stomach with down feathers. Over and over, until it’s nothing more than a whisper of the wind in the grass; two lake-blue beetles staring back up at you. 

And a tug at your hand. 

Centimetre by centimetre, your eyes move downwards to your left. Move downwards, and spy the boy, looking up at you. Has this awe in his eyes akin to seeing a butterfly come out of its chrysalis for the first time. Little grin tugging at his mouth that he seems to refuse to let broaden, as if he’s afraid that if he gets too animated, you’ll disappear. 

You kind of want to, if you’re honest. Wonder if he’ll drag you down into the dirt again. Six feet under sounds pretty good right now.

He shifts his other hand from behind his back, and, each nodule of your neck bones cracking and creaking with effort, you look down to see what he’s holding. 

Flowers.

A whole chunk of them. Pretty, almost globish yellow things that remind you vaguely of little suns; leaves and root and dirt and all. Woodlice and worms curling around it like a living ribbon, stencil stars dancing with them.

His smile is wide now. All snaggle tooth and bright eyes. He pushes the bunch a little further up, grin faltering for a second and it’s enough for you to gently take hold of them, nodding in thanks, though, you lose one. Don’t have it in you to pick it back up as you lean in to smell them; scent filling your stomach like warm honey.

“Can I ask you something?”

You bring yourself back, nodding as you blink plankton out of the corners of your eyes. After, you glance at the door. You’re further back, now, but you half expect the knob to start rattling, frantically.

“What do the swifts talk about in the evening?”

You turn back to him. Stare a few moments, before looking up. Sky a wash of serene blue and velvet night, dotted with stars like moth-eaten holes of light in worn fabric. The birds dart between them, fast arrowheads that stitch the sky together, singing all the same. 

Good question, you think. You have the same one. 

You sigh, looking down, a tired, “I wish I knew,” escaping your lips, only to find yourself-

-headfirst in some large bouquet.

You flinch back, mumbling an apology to the woman who holds it—a big bunch of red roses, wild grasses and baby’s breath; one of those typical ones that are always popular around valentines day—and lay your head back on the wall, phosphines dancing in your vision like stars.

↟⛰︎⛰︎⛰︎↟

They love me, they love me not, they love me, they love me not, they love me.

————————————

This was written during one of the more stressful periods of my academic life, as well as two different bouts of heat-wave induced delirium, so I hope it’s enjoyable! Lol. I promise König will be more prevalent in the second chapter <3

This one also goes out to all my office and or late // night shift workers. Summer is here. It’s gonna be okay

(I also apologise for any possible inaccurate // stiff sounding German; all I have is *very* basic knowledge and a translator haha. If there's anybody more knowledgeable on it reading, please feel free to correct me!)

Translations:

Hallo? Geht es dir gut? = Hello? Are you okay?

Bist du verloren? = Are you lost?

Ich könnte dich zurück in die Stadt wenn du möchtest = I can take you back into town, if you'd like

Du kommst mir bekannt vor = You look familiar

Ich will keine Angst haben. Er sagt mir ich solle keine haben = I don't want to be afraid. He tells me I shouldn't be

Kannst du meine Hand weiter halten? Es macht mich weniger verängstigt = Can you keep holding my hand? It makes me feel less scared

Bitte = Please