PROSE – FOWC & RDP

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The static clung to him like ash—faint, choking, inescapable. He’d stopped keeping track of the days. Time was foremost a suggestion now, something smeared across the ceiling in mildew and regret.

They said he was a man once. Strong. Reliable. The kind that shows up on time and keeps his word. The kind that doesn’t cry at hospital bedsides or stare too long at old photographs. They said that.

But memory plays tricks. Rewrites endings. Paints the villains in softer hues and leaves the heroes out in the cold. His reflection no longer argued. It just blurred at the edges, refusing to confirm or deny what he had become.

The sink dripped. The fan rattled. The voices whispered. Still, he sat there, jaw clenched, knuckles white, a prayer caught somewhere between his teeth and his shame.

He collapsed into the corner of himself—the part that still remembered how to feel.

He heard a child giggle, smelled lavender and lilac.
But from where?

That door had been closed for years, bolted by memory, corroded by silence. Yet tonight, something had stirred.
Not hope.
Just the echo of what it used to sound like.