Sitting on the carpet, I can see the faint white shapes surrounded by pale yellow, where old pictures and ornaments used to hang.  Now that I am finally tall enough to reach, they are gone.  The apartment is empty.

This place is a tomb with a glass window, where I look out on the earth and the worms staring inwards, waiting for their moment to break through and consume.  From a dark corner of the hallway I can smell the perfume of a long dead relative, so I close the door and push a chair against it.  I turn the television on, but mute the sound.  I want the ghosts to know I’m in here, but I want to hear them first.

Climbing on a little table, I look out of a window across the dim yellow lights of a cold town.  Five floors up, the window frame rattles with the wind and the trees sway as though directing it towards me.  Down below, I can see the long shadows of our games, the scars of our youth, and the wisps of fog that run like freeways and motorways over paths where we concentrated our energy, pounding the tarmac in the pursuit of meaning.

I wish I could go outside, but I’m alone and I’m not allowed.  The apartment is warm, but I want to be on the wasteland, underneath the fencing panel we propped against a tree, writing notes in code, and feeling the beetles crawling in my hair.