A Cinematic Auditory Experience
Proof of Absence
Strangers
by Ghostly Kisses
You stood in the hallway with your hands pushed deep into the pockets of a dark jacket I had never seen before. The fabric was stiff, creasing sharply at the elbows, making you look broader and entirely unfamiliar. You didn't announce your arrival or offer any explanation for the months of quiet that had preceded it; you simply stepped over the threshold as if running a mundane afternoon errand.
I noticed that you avoided looking at the brass hooks where you used to hang your keys, fixing your gaze instead on the scuff marks near the hallway baseboard. We sat across from each other in the living room, and you kept pressing the edge of your thumbnail into the denim seam of your jeans. It was a sharp, restless gesture that did not belong to the person I remembered.
"The two people who had once shared this address no longer existed."
I found myself sitting rigidly, my spine completely straight against the sofa cushions, acutely aware of how my own body was refusing to soften in your presence. It became immediately apparent that the two people who had once shared this address no longer existed. We were just two adults occupying the aftermath, burdened with the physical features of people we used to know, unable to bridge the few feet of flooring between us.
But the recollection felt thin and historical, like reading a newspaper account of an event I hadn't attended. The room simply felt empty, swept entirely clean of the shared history that used to crowd the space between the walls. As the afternoon light retreated, throwing long, unreadable shadows across the floorboards, neither of us made a move to reach for a light switch.
You shifted your weight forward, the soles of your shoes scraping briefly against the wood, signaling the quiet mechanics of a departure. I didn't offer a polite farewell or suggest that we get coffee sometime next week.
I just watched the outline of your shoulders merge into the dimness of the corridor, finally understanding that your brief, physical return was simply the necessary proof of your complete absence.
A quiet walk to the bus stop
After the front door clicks shut, I walk into the kitchen and notice a folded grocery receipt left on the counter, printed with a timestamp from three days ago. I smooth out the creased paper with the flat of my palm, reading the faded blue ink without absorbing any of the items listed.
Outside, a car door slams heavily, followed by the low, steady rumble of an engine pulling away from the curb. I leave the slip of paper where it is and pull a chair out from the table, watching the streetlights flicker on one by one through the glass, listening to the traffic on the main road until the sound becomes indistinguishable from the wind.
From the radio of a car pulling away...
the lingering shadows of a shared life and the exact sensation of watching memories lengthen across an empty room.
A profoundly desolate track that feels like speaking into an unfathomable abyss, mourning a living person who has drifted away.
Resonates with the foolish certainty that a lost lover might return.
how one can vanish entirely into a phantom of the mind.
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