What if you stepped off the road?

What if you made your way across the field?

What if you approached it and stood on the front stoop, your footsteps clonk-clonk-clomping over the dark hollow space beneath, shaking the empty cobwebs?

Dead leaves descend. Rattled free from the tight corners where the wind never reaches, they seek their final solace in the black earth.

Don’t we all?

Smell the mold in the cracked foundations and eras of sunlight trapped in the faded wood. Feel the grainy ridges as you run your hands over the weather-beaten planks.

Who built this? There is no one here. Not for years.

Not ever, maybe.

Maybe this is one of those places that has no past.

Maybe it has always been this way, having simply washed onto the shores of existence alongside its conjoined siblings: Age and Solitude.

Maybe it is its own archetype.

The only sound now is the low, shallow breath of time itself as it stands still, waiting in the gaping darkness beyond the door and in the deepest forest between the trees and in the part of your mind where you store everything you’ve ever forgotten.

Is time real?

Is this real?

Is this always?

What if you stepped inside?

What then?

What now?