I sit outside an empty house. Its silence presses upon my shoulders. The open windows whisper about nothing.
With my back turned and my eyes closed, I know this house. I know it to the bones. My hands placed every brick and built every wall. The mortar is a mixture of dreams and love.
From here I can smell and taste a thousand meals cooked in the oven, the kitchen ever pregnant with laughter and comfort.
On my skin is etched the touch of bedsheets, the warmth of a bedroom shared for decades. A lifetime of secrets told by gentle lips, promises sealed by naked bodies.
I know each toy that sleeps under a small bed in a small room, a place where my hugs could dispel any nightmare and my calloused hands dry every tear.
I sit outside an old house. A house that has become too big. Inhabited by ghosts and memories, kept alive by my reveries.
Above the mantle on the wall hang two blades and a shield. They make me ponder. They speak to me of past deeds, they ask me if it is all over.
Am I to rust and fade away, to give up my life to dirt and dust?
I sit outside my own house, but I stare at the sea. There is a calling there, beyond the horizon, a hint of something left to do. A last chance to feel alive before death is all I see.