the house at twilight
i started noticing small things that week — a stopped clock, a light under a door, a stone left where someone might find it. nothing dramatic. just the kind of noticing that happens when the house goes quiet and the day starts turning over into evening.
the clock

it had been stopped for a while before i noticed. hands frozen somewhere past the hour, and no one had come to fix it, or maybe no one needed it fixed. i stood there long enough that i started keeping the wrong time on purpose.
the door

a strip of light along the floor, the kind that means someone is on the other side doing something ordinary. i could have walked through. i chose the hallway instead, and the light, and the not knowing.
the book

face-down on the terrazzo, spine cracked open where someone left it mid-sentence. that's a kind of trust, leaving a book like that — believing you'll be the one to come back and finish it.
the two glasses

only one made sense to me. the other sat there, full, untouched, like it was waiting on someone i hadn't met yet. i didn't move either of them.
the lamp

unlit, arched over an empty spot on the floor like it was still deciding whether to turn on. i stood underneath it anyway, in the part before the light comes, which has its own kind of quiet.
the stone

i set it on the sill before the sky went all the way dark. small, smooth, easy to miss unless you were looking for it — which is sort of the point.