I don’t remember where the staircase begins.
Only that it rises before me,
stone worn smooth by time,
disappearing into fog like a question I never thought to ask.
The air is damp. Still.
My breath is the only sound I hear.
I don’t know where I am.
I don’t even know how I got here.
In my hand, a candle.
Already lit.
I don’t remember lighting it.
Don’t remember who handed it to me.
But I know, with the certainty of a dream,
that I must carry it,
unextinguished,
up 2,207 steps.
If I reach the top and place the flame on the altar,
then everything will make sense.
I don’t know what “everything” means.
I just know I have to do this.
And I can’t go back.
—
I’m on the 47th step.
The sky is soft with early light.
Golden mist laces the trees.
Ruins bloom with ivy,
as if the earth is reclaiming its dead one vine at a time.
Even the moss on the steps glitters under the sun’s touch,
like it is guiding a child forward.
It’s obscene, almost, how beautiful it all is.
As if the world is showing off for someone else.
And I walk through it like a ghost no one can see.
I should feel something.
Awed.
Mesmerised.
Like I was touched by something holy.
But I feel nothing.
Not indifference. Not resistance.
Just… nothing.
I can’t remember the last time anything moved me.
I feel like a foreigner in a country where meaning used to live.
Then again,
when was the last time I felt like I belonged anywhere?
—
Step 1,108.
A sudden gust. The fog spins.
The flame bends, fragile.
I drop to my knees. My heart jolts.
I cup the candle with both hands.
I breathe slowly.
The flame stutters.
But it lives.
And for a second, I feel something real: fear.
Not for myself.
For this little fire.
For its weight. Its meaning.
It’s the only thing I carry that doesn’t feel borrowed.
Why do I believe something waits at the end?
—
Step 1,227.
I’m out of breath.
My legs ache.
The candle shakes in my palm,
but it’s still lit.
I have to keep going.
On the sides of the staircase,
the wet stone rises in knee-high walls…
the kind that mark old shrines, forgotten places.
Hairline cracks. Little ferns like scars.
And I noticed something peculiar.
Pencil lines on the stones.
A child’s drawing.
Jagged triangle. Circles beneath.
Crooked flames. A lopsided dome.
It’s a spaceship.
I stop. My lungs go tight.
It’s mine.
I was six. I drew it on my mom’s kitchen wall.
I thought it looked perfect, like something that could carry me away.
My mother was furious.
Called me by my full name.
But she never erased it.
Even when the wall was repainted years later,
that crude spaceship stayed.
I crouch.
My fingers hover above the drawing,
trembling just above the moss.
What is this?
Where am I?
None of this makes sense.
My heart is loud in my ears.
And all I want is to go back.
Not down.
Back.
To my house.
To the kitchen wall.
To the boy who believed that drawing
could carry him home.
—
Step 1,807.
Another four hundred to go.
The climb is cruel now.
No more poetry in the stone… just pain.
My thighs burn.
The air thins.
Every breath feels earned.
I hunch over, cupping my jacket around the candle.
It sways, shivering but alive.
Somewhere ahead, through the fog…
Voices.
They’re singing.
There’s laughter, too.
And a piano, slightly out of tune.
The notes ripple through the mist like echoes from another life.
It’s coming from above, but I can’t see it.
—
A clearing opens.
And there it is…
A valley unfurling beneath the sky,
trees like green fire, rooftops catching the light,
a river threading through it all like silver ribbon.
It’s real. Tangible.
Like a city forgotten by time,
lit by a light too golden to be real.
But something about it stops me.
That roofline… oh, I know that shape.
Where we kept the light on for each other, even when we weren’t speaking.
Those trees over there… the same crooked bend outside the hospital window,
where I waited, useless, while her body made us a family.
And just beyond,
a silhouette of the building where I mistook ambition for meaning.
Another, where applause met my name, and I rose into it like light.
Another still, like the cafe where I said too much, and not enough.
It doesn’t make sense.
Geographically, it’s absurd.
As if this whole landscape
was drawn from the margins of my memory.
Everything in its place.
Perfectly arranged.
And still… something feels off.
I feel like I am staring at a photograph
of a life I was supposed to inhabit
but somehow never did.
Like I spent my life building an entire world,
but I never found a home.
—
The music rises again.
Soft, crackling… like it’s playing on an old record.
I squint into the fog.
I know that song.
Greenfields by The Brothers Four.
It was one of my dad’s favourite songs.
I was too young to know the words,
but I knew the sound of his voice when he sang it in the car.
We’d be packed in our old Datsun Sunny,
coming home from church.
Five of us, sweating, singing,
cringing as he held Mom’s hand at the red light.
We had nothing.
But somehow… everything.
I never felt that way again since.
—
Step 2,157.
Only fifty more to go.
The song is louder now… so close it hurts.
But I still can’t see where it’s coming from.
The candle is still burning.
The wax has dripped onto my skin.
I don’t feel it anymore.
I follow the words, mouthing them without meaning to.
Greenfields are gone now, parched by the sun,
Gone from the valleys where rivers used to run,
Gone with the cold wind that swept into my heart,
Gone with the lovers who let their dreams depart.
Where are the greenfields that we used to roam?
Something in me buckles.
I sit on the steps again.
I weep.
But I don’t know why.
—
Step 2,207.
The final step.
Night.
The moon hangs heavy,
its light scattering like breath on glass.
Everything was supposed to make sense.
Though I still don’t know what “everything” means.
I reach the top, expecting… something.
A shape in the fog.
A shrine.
An answer.
But there is no altar.
Just a house.
Small. Plain.
Familiar in the way grief is.
A two-story terrace, just like the others in the row.
But only this one glows from within,
like it’s alive.
Like it remembers.
I stand across the street, watching.
There’s music.
Singing. Laughter.
The low hum of a piano, slightly out of tune.
A giant paper lantern hangs in the living room,
round and glowing
like someone caught the moon and kept it indoors.
I used to make fun of that.
I never thought I’d see it again.
I walk closer, cradling the candle still burning in my hands.
The house number: 71.
I helped my father nail those numbers into that pillar.
The closer I get, the quieter it becomes.
Like the house is holding its breath.
—
I open the front door.
No one’s here.
But it doesn’t feel empty.
Just… paused.
Like everyone just stepped out for a moment.
The house is smaller than I remembered.
That ghastly divider is still there,
separating the living room from the dining room.
And there it is.
My piano.
Our piano.
The wooly red carpet beneath it,
frayed at the edges.
My father bought it secondhand.
He was proud of the deal.
That little square of floor became our stage.
Some nights, we’d gather here,
my brother with his guitar,
me at the piano,
my sister’s voice threading through it all.
Mom would hum, soft and low.
And Dad…
grinning, clapping,
making up the lyrics when he forgot them.
We had nothing then.
But somehow… everything.
—
I sit on the bench.
The wood creaks like it remembers my weight.
I place the candle on the piano.
I breathe in.
It smells like dust and something sweet.
Maybe memory.
I fumble on the keys a bit.
I can’t remember the last time I played anything real.
Then I hear it:
“Do you still remember the song ‘Greenfields’?”
I turn.
And there he is.
My father,
but my age.
Smiling like nothing ever left.
Something in me buckles.
I sob.
The kind that starts somewhere too deep to name.
“I missed you, Papa,” I say.
“I missed us… I missed how things used to be.”
He sits beside me.
Puts his arm around my shoulder,
like it always was.
Like he never left.
He looks at the candle.
“Is this yours?”
I nod.
“It’s perfect,” he says.
I hold him like I wanted to stay forever.
“You can always come home, you know,” he chuckles.
“I don’t know how,” I said.
He just smiles.
Picks up the guitar.
And starts singing.
“Greenfields are gone now… parched by the sun…”
His voice carries it gently.
Not polished.
But honest.
I join him on the piano.
Then I hear my sister’s voice… soft and certain.
My brother’s chords from somewhere in the room.
And my mother’s soft hum.
The house fills with us.
Whole.
And for a moment,
I remember what love feels like when it’s real.
Not an idea.
Not a memory.
But something living.
And when the last verse comes,
he looks at me,
like he’s telling me the part I need to hear:
“You can’t be happy while your heart’s on the roam.
You can’t be happy until you bring it home.
Home to the greenfields and me once again…”
I close my eyes.
I don’t understand it.
But I feel it.
Something warm.
Something found.
Something like home.
Featured image adapted from a photo by White Field Photo
See more on Unsplash: @jra9393
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