The orchard fades slowly, like a photograph left too long in the sun—edges curling, colors paling, the scent of earth and rain retreating into a ghostly memory. I stand on the porch, the air heavy and cold now, a brittle stillness pressing down like a weight I can't lift. The warmth I clung to in the dream slips away with the dying light.
Beyond the hill, the sea stretches vast and silent, a steel-gray expanse merging with the heavy clouds above. Its surface, once a mirror of gentle blues and shimmering sun, now dulls into a cold, endless void—quiet and unyielding. The waves hold their breath, as if waiting for something they will never reach.
The woman—her hair like threads of sunlight, her voice a soft warmth that once wrapped around me—is gone. The child's laughter, bright and free, fractures in the distance like a fragile echo trapped behind a pane of frosted glass. I strain to catch the sound again, to reach through the thinning veil of memory, but it slips away, dissolving into the chill wind.
My chest tightens with the sudden sharpness of loss. I want to call out—to call their names—but the words dissolve in my throat. The sound is nothing but a dry whisper, caught in the cavern of silence that fills this place.
I turn toward the forest—the dark, tangled boundary where light and shadow wrestle and secrets hide. The trees rise like silent sentinels, their ancient branches woven tightly as if to guard what lies within. Shadows pool beneath their boughs, shifting and flickering in the uncertain light.
I step forward, hesitant. The earth beneath my feet is soft but unfamiliar, damp with a chill that seems to seep into my bones. Leaves crackle underfoot, brittle and cold, their rustling the only sound in the oppressive stillness.
There's a pull deep inside me—a tug at the edges of my soul—beckoning me toward the darkness beyond the tree line. A presence waits there. I don't know what it is, but it feels at once distant and near, a secret breathing just beyond my reach.
My fingers trail along the rough bark of a gnarled tree, its coldness grounding me even as the dream slips beneath my skin and blurs the line between what is real and what is not. The forest breathes around me—slow, deliberate, and alive with quiet things I cannot name.
A sudden flicker of movement catches my eye—a shadow darting too quickly to see clearly. I blink, and it vanishes like smoke carried off by the wind.
I want to stay. I want to step deeper into that shadowed world and uncover whatever waits hidden beneath the tangled leaves and whispering branches. But a soft, distant murmur calls me back—the voice of the waiting room, cold and unyielding.
The pale walls, the silent clock frozen above the doors, the endless stillness that presses against me like an unseen hand.
I am caught between two worlds.
Between the warmth of a family I never had and the cold solitude of this room where time sleeps.
Between the orchard's gentle rain and the unrelenting quiet.
Between hope's fragile flame and resignation's heavy shadow.
I close my eyes, trying desperately to hold both at once—the memory of sunlit laughter and the harsh glow of fluorescent lights.
But when I open them, I am alone.
The emptiness presses in from all sides, thick and suffocating.
A weight settles deep in my chest—a mixture of longing, doubt, and sorrow so profound it threatens to crush me.
Was any of it real? The woman, the child, the orchard drenched in rain—were they memories or mere fantasies conjured by my desperate mind?
Or were they something else entirely? A glimpse of a life I might have had—or might still find?
I try to hold onto the hope that there is more beyond this room—that time will one day awaken, that the waiting will end.
But the silence answers only with itself.
The clock's hands remain frozen in their stubborn vigil.
The air hums low with the ceaseless drone of unseen lights.
And I sit, trapped in the quiet, the aching space between dreams and waking, between presence and absence.
I am here.
Waiting.