The sheet collapsed. There was no one under it. The note fluttered to the floor, and the house was finally, truly, empty.
He stood in the corner of the living room, watching M eat a chocolate pie. She ate it with a focused, brutal grief, scraping the tin until the sound set his non-existent teeth on edge. He wanted to reach out, to tell her that the house wasn't empty, but his hands were only folds of fabric. When he moved, the world didn't ripple; he was the ripple. The sheet collapsed
The white linen was no longer a bedsheet; it was a weight. Underneath it, C did not feel like a man, but like the memory of a smell—old cedar, floor wax, and the faint, metallic tang of a piano string. He stood in the corner of the living
Time began to lose its edges. It didn't flow; it sedimented. When he moved, the world didn't ripple; he was the ripple
He waited. He endured the loop until the house was empty once more. With a spectral fingernail, he picked at the paint, chipping away decades of grime until he reached the slip of paper. He pulled it out and read the words he had written to her when he was whole.
He didn't die; ghosts don't have that luxury. Instead, he fell back into the beginning.