text: The winds whisper softly past my ears as I wander along the derelict passage of road. I stop briefly to gaze at the final goodbyes of a retiring sun. The sky has a funny way of looking depressed, almost sorrowful at dusk. Like someone knows what it has done. I turn my vision away, suspicious of the feeling that has collected inside me. I notice a fuzzy shape in my peripheral vision, my distracted eyes making the decision for my neck. A handful of sheep, 6, or 7, or maybe 8, I count, all seem to be staring directly at me. As if I am somehow more important than the millions of blades of grass that gawk at them, frozen in terror, hoping their stillness and straightness would deliver salvation to a grassy afterlife when their hollow existence here on Earth finally comes to an end. Not that I am religious or anything like that. The 12, or 14, or maybe 16 eyes are fixed intently on me, and to my dismay it becomes painfully obvious I am the butt of their cruel jokes, my listening apparatus unfit for the job of deciphering the incoherent vibrations escaping from their gobs. “Hey! Hey stop it!” I shriek at the ruminants. “Stare at something fucking else, you ain’t got no reason to be staring at me”. The sound of my own voice startles me. It has been what feels like days since any sound has escaped from my sealed lips. I avoid speaking if at all possible, I find the hush of an empty place soothing. I always have. I turn back to the long road that stretches beyond me, and a wave of familiarity passes through me. The symmetry amongst the trees, the unremarkable shape of the mountains further on, the quietness of the world. What was it they called it? Deja-vu? Something French I know that much. I shake it off and carry on along the road. It seems like a lifetime before I see the house on the hill in the distance. Dusk has seized the day, so I think maybe the house could act as a place to find some peace for the night ahead. The house seemed larger from afar. It looks as if it had been neglected for quite some time, as if the residents had left in a hurry. I wander closer to the house, making my way slowly across the deck, the floorboards shrieking in pain as my boots trample upon them. I run my fingers along the walls, flakes of off-white paint dropping to the ground with every scrape. “Oak Noir”, I say aloud to myself. I search my mind to how I know this, but to no avail. The strange feeling of familiarity tickles me again. I give the door a slight tap, it creaks open, and I can now see the interior of the house. A long hallway, which may have been elegant in another life, stares back at me blankly. Cold, dying carpet caked with generations of dust and dirt, which has now turned into a greyish paste. My eyes drift upwards along the hallway. A door at the end of the hall is open, which I see leads to the living room. I drift along the hallway, stopping near the centre to look at a picture on the wall. It’s a family portrait, with what looks like this house in the background. The condition of the house is immaculate, the building looking vastly superior compared to its current state. I study family in the picture. Two parents and a single child, a baby. The father has short blonde hair, and a handsome smile. The mother, with the baby in her arms, stares back at me with magnificent, big blue eyes. I can’t quite make out if the expression in them is sadness or terror, but the feeling washes over me once again. The hairs on my neck stick up, and goosebumps run down my arms. I turn and walk slowly towards the living room. I can’t explain why, but everything in my body is telling me that I know this place, and that I should not go through the door. However my legs keep moving, one after the other, towards the great reveal. I put my hand on the icy-cold door. I close my eyes as I open it, not wanting to see what this feeling of angst in my body will show me. “3, 2, 1” I say to myself, mustering the courage to let my eyelids relax. “Open”. The room is bare. Nothing but a window leading out towards the road. I wonder how long I have been in this house, as the sun has returned to lighten the valley below. I stare out the window, and far in the distance I can make something out. A man, walking along the road towards the house. “Do not fear child, I’ll see you again soon”, says a voice behind me.. The winds whisper softly past my ears as I wander along the derelict passage of road.