Don't Keep the Light On
A/N: This had come to me the other night while trying to fall asleep. Guess I'm still a bit too sentimental. It's nothing really in particular, just thoughts put down on a page.I opened a door the other day. It was a place that I'd wanted to forget about. Tried to at any rate. But there was always the image of that door in the back of my mind. It was dark out, always was. Would always tell the other person to leave the light on out front if we went out. Could always find your way home. It was a solid door, one I'd closed many years ago. There was a faint light in the window. I'd had hope, a slight flicker inside. That was the day I unlocked it. Though that's not entirely true. I slid a letter under the door and it's owner opened it for me. It had barely changed. They had barely changed. Rather that's what it looked like from the steps outside. I was welcomed back inside like a long lost friend. In a way I was a long lost friend.Though stepping inside there had indeed been changes. Scuffs on the floor from moved furniture, the walls showed signs of being painted over and over. Yet somehow despite all of this there was a gentle happiness. We sat down and chatted, discussed our lives. So many memories in that house but we never touched on any of them.
The house brought back memories of a wolf and a dragon.
The meeting was short but meaningful. Somehow inside there was that feeling of fulfillment. So I left once more and they had kept the light on.
Over the next few days I would return, again we would discuss, we would laugh. It almost felt like time had rewound itself. But that was the trouble with memories; you never remember what you need to remember. Through all the innocence and joy was a pervading sense of fear and panic. Knowledge that under all those coats of paint and before all the scuff on the floor, I had indeed lived here though there was reason to my leaving. It was a dangerous house if anything else. No longer mine and yet it was so intoxicating that I'd wished to stay with them again. It was a place I'd abandoned years ago, yet coming back I'd begun to wish I'd never left. But I had my reasons. I could never stay there again. Who knows when the furniture would be moved again? When the walls were repainted as another person came to live in the house? It was then that I'd decided to take my leave. Said I'd be willing to come back if they'd want to talk again. Ahh, what a cruel old fool that I am. I walked out that door again and closed it. Tried to ignore that smile on there face. Truth is it wasn't for me. They just liked the company.The door would lock with a click. Despite my words I would not be returning to that house. The chance to stay there had long since passed. I had no longer need the light on out front. I closed a door the other day.It was a place I still wanted to forget about.
Not because I didn't want to be there.
But because I don't want to be lost in there again and be forgotten under another layer of paint on the walls.