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At Night, I Can Hear Them Stephen L. Harrison

The dark falls like a blanket.

I lie in my bed, naked.

My mind begins to wander, tuning itself to the house— some secret signal drawing me back to this room.

My bedroom.

This room has seen things.

It has known lovers— young ones, old ones, breathless in the quiet.

Some grew old and disappeared.

Some were too young ever to see the end. They went away to fight.

The wars took them.

They never came home.

Some had their lives snatched away, their futures stolen.

Some simply faded, slipping into the dark, gone before morning.

But this room—

it holds them.

All of them.

And the sounds I hear— I know those sounds.

The old bed springs squeaking softly when I move, or when the house settles.

But they are also the sounds of life:

quiet whispers, soft sounds of closeness, moments of joy, of giving and receiving—

that simple love between two people, when nothing else exists.

They are still here.

I can feel them.

I know it.

Because when the night is deep and everything is still, I can hear them breathing in the room with me.

At night, I can hear them.

Still at work.