It is the same room. I'm in that room again. This too happens sometimes, it's not unusual that it does at all.

I look through the window and see a familiar sight. It’s winter, and a soft cover of snow has made everything look indiscernible. I see an image of two trees with a dirt path running to the left of them, and an unobstructed meadow. In springtime its lush, vibrant green colour must bring joy to the eye, but I can never tell for sure. I’ve been here five times when it was winter and once during what seemed like spring or summer, but regardless of season, without fail, always at night. Twice the view was different altogether, that of a small town forgotten by time, with gray smoke rising against the dark silhouette of the sky. Other things change and move around as well. The table changes between oak and walnut wood, and the copy of La flamme d’une chandelle moves between the shelf and the drawer. Sometimes it lies open on the desk as well. It’s in French, in other words, incomprehensible to me. Two things alone never change. The quiet figure of the old man, and the pitter-patter sound of his pen, like the sound of birds dancing on paper. They bring me comfort, for a time. I stay for a while. I always do.

__

I'm sitting in my room. A stale smell wafts through the air - I haven’t cleaned my room in weeks. I take a look around; it really is a mess. Weeks old fresh clothes have piled up on the chair, an undoubtable sign of lack of diligence. Always seems to be the first sign of things getting out of hand. There’s cloudy wads of dust in the corners and under the bed, those follow soon after. The cat left a bed of cat hair on the pile of dirty clothes behind the door, and the trashcan is overflowing. The whole ordeal smells and feels like wadding up into a ball under a moldy old blanket. Uncomfortable but not until you notice it. Still, I should open the window and clean up a bit.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

__

What is the old man always writing? His writing is -... Sometimes it’s difficult to read, sometimes it’s bleak and horrible. Nevertheless, it is...

It sets boundaries, it commands, it binds and builds, but it’s alive. He looks pitiful. His face is indiscernible. He’s a strange, small, pitiful man, all alone in his small room, trapped between four walls and in anonymity. I don’t know why I come here, but I have to. His door always looks the same.

One day I enter the room and the man is not there. Instinctively I know, the man is dead, killed. I walk to the window where it’s snowing outside. Somehow I know, it’s an insignificant day in the middle of January. Somehow I know, the man has always been dead. I faced the man and what faced me back was a smiling skull.

Killed, by his own work.

I shove the skeleton out of the chair and sit down.