Beyond the reach of the fires glow, light faded with the hours; but here it remained, as long as there was wood to feed.

He sat in his chair, thinking, and drinking. Held there by the lingering presence of their memory. Like wood to the flames, the amber in his glass gave them life again.

The fire danced to the sounds of the burning wood. While lost in the flames, the creaking felt natural, like the chatter of close company. Then his attention would drift, and the room would return, painted cavernous by the crackling that mocked incessantly.

The house had been like this for years, blanketed in dust that caked in the corners and cracks. The chestnut floor, in spots once shadowed by furniture, had faded with the rest of the old warped boards. The dustless tracks across the living room floor were perhaps the only sign that anyone still lived there. They weaved from the rug to the kitchen and back to the bare mattress that he’d dragged from the bedroom and pushed into the corner a few weeks after they were gone. The cold expanse of the house, he found, could send his thoughts to unpleasant places.

A sharp chill squeezed through the crack between the doors. He sat for a while, watching the chill swirl around, disturbing the warmth. He grabbed the bottle from the floor, topped off his glass, and groaned out of his chair to add another log to the fire. Then returned to sitting stoic, his arms on the rests, not moving except to occasionally push against the rug once or twice, or to coat his throat and let it burn.

Stray threads sprouted from the rug where it had been worn from colored blocks that were piled, and toppled, and happily piled again. Or pushed through the wool tufts to engine sounds sputtering through joyous lips. Beside him two lines pressed into the rug where the other rocking chair had sat: the one he traded the week before for the bottle that fed his glass. He told himself he wouldn’t do it unless he really had to. Not that it mattered anymore, with the house being reclaimed. Tomorrow morning they’d come, all the way out here, “to pick up the keys,” they said. Though he knew it was really to make sure he hadn’t burned the place down. Bastards.

He thought about the boy. About how he’d grown on him — even started to feel like his own near the end. It was during a fight with the boy’s mother that he realized this. About something he wasn’t doing right, or should have been saying. About his failings as a father figure, or how he was a bad influence in some other way. He couldn’t remember anymore. They left that evening with the camping gear and just about the whole damn pantry. It was something they’d done before, for a night or two at a time.

It occurred to him, quite unpleasantly, that if they were still here he would be doing much the same thing: just staring into the flames, as she would have called it, waiting for life to happen. A discomfort surfaced and spread across his skin. “Why does this not count as living?” He would ask earnestly, or say, “You two are my life now,” depending on his mood. He shifted in his chair, repositioning a few times before settling again.

A week passed and they hadn’t returned. He searched the property every evening until it was too dark to see. He wasn’t usually one to worry. In a clearing down by the creek that he swore he’d checked before, a tree lay across their tent, covered in mud and torn to shreds by scavengers. “It must have fallen while they slept,” he thought. And hoped it was true.

He’d spent so long telling himself tomorrow wouldn’t come. He’d find a way to pay; apply for another extension. If only he could make them see that he was doing his damned best. He’d get another loan — the one thing he tried, without success. He’d march down and tell them to their face what they were doing, what they were taking away from a man who’d always come by things honestly.

He muttered to himself incoherently.

A log split into two charred spears and crumbled through the grate. Cold air rushed in to take its place, pulling a slight draft through the room. It would need feeding soon, but his body resisted, his position in the chair feeling more permanent.

The evening darkened and the cold encroached. His back hunched and stiffened, holding as if to avoid losing the heat that found him. Memories of pies and pastries passed through his mind. The scent of warm spices that imbued the air with abundance, the steam from the oven that hugged for hours, the touch of her hand when they were finished baking, reminding him what love felt like.

Memory isn’t the same as life, he thought — words that suddenly meant everything to him.

After much thought and more time, he lifted himself in a series of creaks and moans. Only a few twigs remained in the basket beside the hearth — which caught quickly as he threw them in — and a twisted log that sat under many piles before: impossible to split, and assumed too massive to move alone. But the alternative was to surrender to the cold. He set down his glass and lifted with both hands. The log pulled at his back, threatening to shear muscle off bone as he waddled over to the dwindling fire. It fell hard on the grate, playing it like a bell, and lifting a cloud from the ash beneath. The gust nearly blew out the flame.

The howling wind forced moans from the walls and rattled the windows in their frames. He turned suddenly at the sounds that he thought was an intruder. The wind blew again, knocking the back doors against the trim in quick succession. He shuddered again, unable to help it, and tried to laugh it off in stuttered breaths. He fell back in his chair, and they creaked together in a deeper embrace. A sudden gust blew open the back doors. He shivered as it surrounded him, but didn’t care to get up or do anything else about it.

The twisted log eventually caught, and burned, and dwindled — rising as air again, or falling as ash. His consciousness faded with the glowing coals, in a way that left him disoriented. The space around him tightened, as if the walls were closing in. His thoughts swirled in and out of reality. Desires rose and materialized as his mind unwound, feeling tangible in the way they only do in dreams.

He swore he felt the floor warp and quiver. Then all at once the house lifted from the ground and started to move. It was drifting away, with no intention of stopping, to a place where they couldn’t take it from him; somewhere he could live in this room — in their presence — forever. It was off to place without lenders to take what is yours. Away from a world that punished his dealings with pain.

He’d finally found a solution, and with every moment his desire for it grew stronger.

The house floated higher, getting lighter as it rose into clearer skies. The chipped paint, the splintered wood, the blemishes of age, all softened in the light; the house was regaining some of its splendor.

A streak of reality, with all its weight, swirled back around to tell him this wasn’t real. He pushed back but the blue skies faded, and he couldn’t seem to bring them back. He hesitated at the thought, then opened his eyes — just to be sure. It was dark now, and quiet. The porch sat wet and weathered in the moonlight, and the trees held thick against the property line on its descent towards the creak. The sight of it all stung, thrusting him back into the misery of the life he knew. His head sank to his chest and he fought to not be consumed by it.

The thought of surrender had always sent him into a panic, and this was no different. He flailed, trying to resurface, but found that he couldn’t move. His head was held firmly below water, rendering him unable to breath for moments he thought would never end.

On one forced plunge he noticed bubbles rising from the depths. Just a few at first, then quickly more until they filled his view. In his confusion, the hands of defeat lightened for a moment, but he didn’t attempt to resurface. He stayed gazing into the dark as the bubbles passed over him — the air of anger tickling his face. He watched until his confusion settled into curiosity. And when the water cleared, he looked further beneath. A stifling fear swirled below, with arrogance in its permanence. And though he’d never seen it before — not like this — something about it he recognized. It was the fear of an uncertain future, of unending frustrations, of a life spent struggling to survive. He watched in awe and waited: for it to disappear, for more bubbles to rise. Something. Anything. He had more questions than he’d ever thought to ask, and they fed the flames of urgency.

But when his frustration eventually faded to hopelessness, he didn’t fight back. It felt good to surrender, in a way, so he let himself sink into deeper waters. Numbness overtook him, or an aimless pain that he didn’t understand but knew well how to use.

Something spoke to him then. Maybe a preoccupation with a peaceful death, or whatever it is that lies on the other side of defeat. Let go, it whispered softly, from no particular direction.

His mouth opened wide and throat fell limp, releasing the last of the air from his lungs. After a brief panic a calm crept in, deepening his voluntary loss of control. He looked up once more, to the weakening light as darkness crept in to fill the view. In some approximation of mourning, he watched it fade, until he couldn’t tell if what he saw was the light or his memory of it.

He sunk further from himself and the world he knew, into the darkness that now consumed. His body began losing form, blurring the line between him and the emptiness. The emptiness, it was the same in all directions now — so he turned to the unexplored and pulled himself deeper. A rush of cool water swept across his face, and he pulled further still, scanning the space below for some break in the endless absence of everything.

The slightest glimmer seemed to appear in the distance. It flickered softly, and pulsed, and disappeared, repeatedly and seemingly all at once. Like seeing a floater against an open sky. What felt like an illusion created by a desperate search for light. He dove towards it frantically, slowing only to search again and correct his course.

He slowed to a crawl as he approached, treading with a body he could no longer feel. Luminous shapes moved behind shadowy wisps, distorting and obstructing his view. Closer, he could make out two figures playing on a rug, before doors that were swung open to a warm autumn day. The trees spread across the hills in fiery shades under a bright and open sky. They were playing just as they had before, in the room as it was now, with the lone rocking chair, the mattress in the corner, and the dusty faded floors. The strength of their presence grew, radiating a warmth that fed him.

He would be with them again, forever this time. The thought overwhelmed, and filled him with joy. The boundary of his body sharpened a bit. He could feel tears seeping into the water, swirling with the cold and further warping his view. But it felt good to feel, and so completely, for the first time he could remember. He tried hysterically to swim and called out to them, but he got no closer and no sound came.

The warmth they gave, for those moments too few, escaped him as quick as it came. He could feel the cold for what it was again, and grew increasingly weak. Then, as if hearing his silent screams, she looked up and smiled. He reached out to the glow of her and opened for an embrace. But as his hand neared the light, it pulsed again and flickered out. In the senseless dark his consciousness collapsed, and took with it everything.

The coals were long since cold and the house was still; the breeze through the open doors was all that moved. His body went limp and no longer shivered. The glass fell from his hand and shattered on the floor.

The night settled slowly and the trees gently creaked. Wisps of leaves caught the moonlight as they brushed across the floor, then tumbled silently onto the carpet, burying it some more. The gentle breeze and dancing leaves lifted streaks of dust through the night, restoring, in the pale light, some of the wood’s former glow. But of this he didn’t know, for in his mind was still, and no time passed at all.

Consciousness eventually found him again, thawed by the rays of sun through the skylight. He woke to their warmth, so vibrant and real — still feeling the moment from which he came. He heard them on the rug beside him, playing together, full of life. Morning sun poured through the open doors, filling the room with the endless beauty of the world. In the distance birds sang in the break of day — or he thought, his arrival to this place. The trees yawned and stretched their limbs, waving to a nourishing sky.

By some miracle he’d made it to them, just when he thought he’d lost them again. And that burning he’d always felt, like a pilot light that wouldn’t go out, was so faint that he couldn’t feel it, or had otherwise disappeared.

A frigid breeze tickled his neck. His foot twitched and hit something hard. Awareness of his body returned suddenly and urgency gripped him again. His head whipped around and he threw himself from his chair for a few hurried steps. His foot screamed and his back pulled against him — he’d stepped on the shards of glass. He grabbed his ankle and hollered as he tumbled to the leaf covered floor.

He felt a fool lying there, squirming in pain. A fool for having believed in a senseless fantasy. A fool for having let himself go this far. He looked around for a distraction or something to blame. The rug was still in disarray, the floor was still faded, and the sky wasn’t clear at all, but closing gray. He hadn’t made it to them — of course he hadn’t. This was still the world of the living. He reached for the empty bottle and hurled it against the hearth. The shatters stung his ears, and he closed his eyes. Grains of glass sprayed across the room and tapped across the floor. Upon opening his eyes he watched, unmoving, the place where the bottle broke — marked by a stain on the bricks that dripped towards the floor.

He huffed violently at the littered room. It was the bank’s problem now, he told himself. But anger didn’t follow as it so often had, despite him having taunted it, invited it in. Something about its absence was unnerving. He found himself missing the anger, searching for it even. Just to resolve this empty feeling that grew inside him.

The patter of delicate feet made their way across the roof, then stopped, and pattered some more. He couldn’t remember hearing that before, though he knew he must have.

He lifted himself from his place on the floor and picked the glass from his skin. Thoughts of the future taunted him: where he could live, what he could do. Questions he should have answered by now. He checked the side of his foot for more glass, and adjusted his grip to check the other. The leaves crunched beneath him as he shifted on the floor, and above him a great quiet hung, filling the spaces between.

Standing at the patio doors he was struck again. Maybe it was the false fantasy that lingered, or the increasing strangeness of his feelings. Or maybe his mind, for the first time, had slowed enough to hear the calm of the world. He thought he heard a silence, gentle and full. Beyond the birds singing, the wind brushing the trees, and the creek tricking in the distance — something he couldn’t remember hearing before.

The sun was warm against his face and the sky was as vibrant as it had ever been. He turned back to the empty room, which seemed a bit brighter, and let his mind settle, rediscover its place. It spoke again, of a desire to have them close, to experience the world he woke to. But with the room so patiently asking to be loved, the daydream was hard to hold. It came only in fragments of sights and sounds that flickered when his focus shifted.

He went to the kitchen and searched the cabinets for a broom. After some time he found one, and the dustpan too. He collected the broken glass, swept leaves onto the porch, and dragged the mattress down the hall as far as he could bear. This wasn’t his house anymore, but in a way he couldn’t explain, and wouldn’t say aloud, it would always be theirs. And there’s no reason why they shouldn’t have a swept rug to play on.

With no good reasons he could think of to stay, he headed for the front door.

While pulling on his shoes he lost his balance, and caught himself on the door frame. Once recomposed he looked back at the room and lingered for a moment. And though his feet resisted the stillness and screamed in pain, he held there for one more silent conversation.

He apologized, in so many words, for everything. She asked where he would sleep. He had no answer, except to say that wherever it was, “it will be with you.”

He left the keys under the mat and walked in no particular direction. The emptiness wasn’t gone, but was more familiar now — like a hopelessness so deep that it liberated. And neither was his sorrow, which yearned to be fed, by the rays of sun and the shades of green, the chatter of creatures and the touch of the breeze. And the feeling of the ground pressed against his tender feet, reminding him of what love feels like.