The House on Dover
Abdullah Malik

Everywhere I went, I found traces.

Small pieces of something or other, here and there. I would touch an object that I know I held, once. Some people would look at me, and just for a second, I would think they look familiar.

Places that felt prosaic. A world of Deja Vu. Cities of habit. New experiences that fetl conventional.

And everywhere I went, fragments of memories stirred into thoughts that begged to become half formed. Ideas and flashes of thought and memory that attached to each other, reconstructing damaged goods, joining together in tangles that struggled to make sense. And all of them turned and twisted to lead me to the house on Dover.

It was empty. Deserted.

The shed, with all its equipment, dust and rusted tools strewn everywhere; walls covered in black blood that had long been dry. Lighter coloured markings lined these walls, where the old wood was clawed out. I took one look and stepped outside. Nothing to see here.

The house, every room looking as crisp as the day I had first walked in, with nothing but a fresh layer of grime over everything. The kitchen, a cabinet still open, remnants of a broken glass on the floor, a chair knocked over where they had rushed in to drag her out. No other signs of struggle. Our food, long rotten, sat on the table. No being had touched it. Nature had chosen to ignore it. Nothing had been here. Nothing had touched my old home.

The wood still gleamed through the dust, and the lights still came to life as weakly as ever, a bare yellow glow that stained instead of illuminated. I left the kitchen and went to the living room.

A flash of memory. A boy. His eyes dark, covered by a fringe of long raven hair. He was walking. Running, even. His cheeks were still framed by baby fat.

He had been grounded the week we left. The television was still unplugged. Next to it, chopped kindling, grey with dust and age, still sat in the fireplace. My foot lightly touched something on the carpet. Looking down, I saw a glass roll away from an amaranthine stain, stopping at the coffee table, where a bottle of years old wine sat, uncorked and empty. Behind the television was the bay window, opening out onto a deck, weathered with age and rotting. Beyond the deck was a small dusty parcel of ground, and beyond that, sheer cliffs that looked onto a grey, turbulent sea.

I moved into the hallway and slid past a picture of a happier family in happier times, in all its precious splendour. And another. And another. This whole house was a bygone remnant of my bygone world.

In the foyer, I considered going up the stairs and into the bedrooms, but somehow I already knew what would await me. An empty master bedroom with a box of shells strewn across the floor, a bucket filled with dried vomit, an empty glass of water, and a bed that probably still stank of sweat. One of the other bedrooms would have some children's toys and a dresser full of secondhand clothes. The third bedroom would be empty.

Instead, I slipped through the forward entrance and into the world outside. Standing in the doorway, looking at the expanse of dead earth ahead of me, I smelled the air for the first time that day. It was the essence of sea air, overpowering everything else. A salty scent that ran through my nostrils, ever so slightly wrinkling my nose.

I stepped out the doors and on to the hard, weathered ground. In front of me, a dead field of nothing and the road back to town. Behind me, an old house and the sea.

I touched the faint scar on my temple, running my hand to the steel plate in my skull. A headache was coming on. I started back towards the village, not bothering to look back.

There was nothing to see.