How long have I been here?
I keep asking it like the answer is going to make sense.
Time doesn’t move properly in this place.
Nothing changes.
Nothing ages.
Nothing returns.
The only thing that feels real is this room.
There’s the bed.
The desk.
The bookshelf.
The piano’s here too.
It stays there like it remembers me,
but not expecting much.
And in the corner,
an old CRT television.
It just sits there,
blank glass, thick with silence,
like a mouth that has forgotten my name.
The weird thing is,
I don’t remember arriving.
I just know I’ve always been here.
Like I woke up mid-sentence
and no one told me when it began.
Everything is still.
No hunger. No tiredness.
No tomorrow.
Most of the time it’s the same stale feeling,
sitting on my tongue,
sitting behind my eyes,
like everything in me has already happened.
So I just stay and wait.
For the last trace of me to fade.
—
There was a time when the TV was always on.
Its glow lit each corner of the room.
Like warmth without the sun.
There were always people on screen.
People I used to know.
People I was sure had already moved on.
They’d show up when they thought about me,
right in the middle of their days,
like I still had a place in their lives.
The screen showed them at the bar.
Colleagues.
Hands clasped like they didn’t know where else to put them.
“I wish he was still here.”
Then the screen shifted.
Someone’s in the kitchen.
My best friend.
Sink running for no reason.
Staring out the window with that little smile.
“He’d get why it’s funny.”
Then another shift.
Someone’s in a car.
Someone I loved once.
Keys in the ignition.
A breath that wouldn’t settle.
“I miss him.”
And it kept going like that.
One person after another.
Just little slips
where composure fails
and the truth gets out.
“He always made me laugh.”
“He understood me.”
“He’s made me feel seen.”
With every face,
my chest filled.
Not with pride.
No, it was never pride.
It was something simpler.
Relief.
Because they still held me.
Because I hadn’t vanished.
Because for some reason, my life mattered to them.
So, the TV kept me company.
It was the only thing that kept me going.
And I didn’t need anything else.
—
It started small.
Fewer faces
and longer dark stretches between them.
I used to hover around the TV,
hoping someone would show up.
Then the stretches got so long
I stopped counting.
The TV hasn’t come on in a long time now.
I knew this day would come.
I get it.
Grief fades.
Memories dull.
People move on.
Now the faces only happen in my head.
And even that is getting quieter.
I tried to let it not matter.
But sometimes I still think I hear the TV click.
My body leans forward,
and then I realize it’s nothing.
So I mostly sit in the quiet now.
Not hoping.
Not yearning.
Just… still.
The screen stays blank.
The room stays the room.
Now that no one reaches for me,
no one needs me,
I don’t know who I am.
Just… nothing,
sitting where a person used to be.
—
My eyes drift to the piano.
It’s been a while since I’ve written a song.
Or played anything, for that matter.
I wonder if my hands still remember
something I’ve given up on.
Suddenly, the TV clicks on.
My body turns before I can decide
whether I even want it to.
The hum rises.
The screen takes its time.
Like it’s thinking about it.
Then a voice,
slightly muffled,
and I know it instantly.
Something in my chest lifts.
Heavy.
Uninvited.
For a second, I forget the room.
She’s there.
Older.
But still her.
Just changed in the way people do
when you’re not in their life anymore.
She’s holding a couple of books.
Her thumb finds the inside cover.
My handwriting.
She pauses on the inscription
like it might open into something.
Someone off-screen says something.
“Oh, an old friend of mine got me these,” she says, still looking down.
“He knew how much I loved this author.”
My chest tightens.
For a moment I think,
here it comes.
A story.
A detail.
A version of me that still has weight.
I wait.
Holding my breath for it.
“He was a great guy.”
She smiles.
The books leave her hands.
She goes back to what she was doing
like that sentence finished the job.
No memory.
No specific moment.
Nothing only we would know.
Just a blank space
where something used to live.
And then the screen dies.
Not off.
Not asleep.
Dead.
Pitch black,
like somebody pulled the plug
and didn’t bother looking back.
I stare at the dead screen.
I tell myself that something broke.
But deep down, I knew.
That was my name,
spoken for the last time.
—
I don’t move.
At first I wait for anger.
Or grief.
Or something with a shape.
But nothing arrives.
Just this.
The silence after it goes dark.
A room that won’t respond.
My name with nowhere left to go.
And then the thought comes in, quiet.
Like it’s been here longer than I have.
If everyone I knew has forgotten about me,
it’s the same as if I never existed.
—
I try to grab hold of something.
One thing I did
that would still be true, still be real,
even if all memories of me are gone.
Something that is truly mine.
My mind keeps reaching
and coming back empty.
All I can find are the ways I was useful.
“Great guy.”
“Supportive.”
“Always there.”
Words people use
when they don’t have anything real to say.
My throat tightens
because that might be all I ever was.
A handful of adjectives
that die as soon as the mouth closes.
—
A door opens.
Slowly, without a sound.
I never realised it was there.
A boy steps in.
Eyes clear.
He holds himself like tomorrow is real.
I recognise him,
the way you recognise your name
when someone says it differently.
My jaw locks.
Not grief.
Regret.
Guilt.
He steps toward me and holds his hand out.
Palm up, waiting, like he has done this before.
“It’s time,” he says.
My chest caves.
There are so many things I want to say.
That I tried.
That life got in the way.
That I had reasons.
But the truth is already sitting there.
Quiet.
Unmoving.
I weep.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
Then again.
And again.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
Like if I say it enough times it might start to mean something.
He grips my hand tighter.
Not to stop me.
Just to stay.
He smiles. Softly.
“I know.”
—
I turn and take one last look around the room.
It’s still here.
It looks the same as it always has.
The bed.
The desk.
The TV.
Same as ever.
Then my eyes find the piano.
My throat tightens.
It’s still there, quiet and patient,
like it kept my place.
“Before we go…”
My voice sounds small.
“Can I do one last thing?”
The boy looks at me.
His head tilts slightly.
Curious.
I go to the piano.
My fingers find the wood.
Carefully.
Like I’m not sure I’m allowed.
A thin film of dust coats the lid.
I wipe it away with my sleeve,
and the mahogany beneath it shines through
like something still alive.
My hand lingers there.
Not memory.
Recognition.
I sit.
The bench settles under me, familiar.
Not comfortable.
Just… known.
Like it’s been holding my shape this whole time.
—
My fingers hover over the keys.
At first, it’s clumsy.
Wrong notes.
Half-starts that fall apart in my hands.
The sound feels foreign,
like a language I used to speak fluently
and then abandoned.
The boy looks at me.
His eyes don’t ask for anything.
They just stay,
like he’s seen this part before
and knows it can still happen.
Something loosens.
I stop holding back.
This time the notes don’t disappear.
They hold.
They connect.
One chord.
Then another.
And something in me answers it.
Not a thought.
A feeling.
A pulse.
And suddenly I’m singing.
Not loudly.
Not carefully.
Just… honestly.
The words come with the music,
untested, unpolished,
rising out of me like they’ve been waiting
for something solid to lean on.
The room fills up,
keys, breath, voice,
and I feel it everywhere at once,
in my wrists, in my chest, in my jaw,
like my body is remembering it has weight.
I sing harder.
Not for him.
Not for anyone else.
For me.
The music starts pulling things out of me
I didn’t know were still there.
All the things I swallowed.
All the things I saved for later.
All the versions of me that never got to speak.
My eyes fill while I’m singing.
It isn’t sadness.
It’s the warmth of hearing something real
come out of my own mouth.
Like I’ve been gone,
and I just walked back into my own body.
—
The last chord lingers in the air.
And the room is still the room.
Nothing answers.
No light beams.
No applause.
No miracle.
My hands are still on the keys.
Warm.
Trembling.
The boy looks at me.
“What do you think?” he asks.
I blink, like I’m coming up for air.
“It’s not great,” I say.
And I mean it.
But my mouth is almost smiling.
I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.
“But at least it was mine.”
—
We stand at the doorway.
He holds my hand tighter,
like he’s steadying me.
There is nothing beyond it.
No light.
No darkness.
Just space, like the world has run out.
I look at the room again.
I can still hear the song hanging in the air.
I know it won’t last.
I know the echo will die.
I know it will all be forgotten.
But for that one moment,
for the length of a song that didn’t need anyone,
I was alive.
And that… was enough.
Featured image adapted from a photo by Ryunosuke Kikuno
See more on Unsplash: @ryunosuke_kikuno
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