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Calibration 74: Chapter Sixty-Six
Calibration 74 is a serial novel experiment, posted raw and unedited as it is written. It is recommended you start at the beginning.
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Chapter Sixty-Six
The pink room. In the time before space and the time before meteors. The time when everything was safe. But after it all turned upside down.
Soft pillows and warm blankets. A lamb as white as the snow. The nightlight a carousel, casting dreams on the walls, as her music box sings me to sleep.
But I cannot remain here. Not now, not ever. For it’s gone and I know this is true. You cannot escape in a memory. You cannot escape in a dream. As much as you wish that you could.
This house, it is empty. I don’t need to shout. I don’t need to call out their names.
No one will answer. Not ever again.
And again, I leave it behind.
The streets are a desert. All souls have escaped to the safety of their own homes.
I count each step, to distance my mind. One thousand one. One thousand two. One thousand three.
Look at my face. Stare at my eyes. Show me I’m really still here.
But I am a ghost, a ghost in my past. A past I’d rather forget.
In the gutter I find them, the quarter and dime. The 35 cents I once held.
A simple reminder of a day that once was.
But I threw them away and I do it again.
You can’t do much with 35 cents.
