ghosts haunt huts where the dirt floor soaks up spilt blood hungrily, never leaving a trace other than a damp stain that could mean anything.

sometimes people are born in homes turned inside out, where the cold resides within still chambers where the heater roars on.

i knew a woman once who killed herself because she couldn't find her keys one morning and that had been the breaking point. it was on a dark corner where the alleyway met the streetlight, air so cold your breath materializes before it realizes its no longer connected to your body, dead before it hits the ground. she was going in the direction i came, i was going forward, searching for the name of something i'd already found. i saw her sad, inward eyes and recognized her because i'd met her once before, before she ever tried to unlock that secret room, before she knew there was nothing in it. ignorance is always the universe's gift to the innocent. are you alive, i asked her, because something about the moment wasn't right. are you alive, she asked, and dismissed me, walking into the shadows behind me, her black coat flapping unbuttoned despite the cold. i felt snubbed.

it made me more rawly aware of how utterly alone i was on a strange sidewalk in a strange, lost city.

i dreamed of her once. in the dream, she seemed as real as she did to me that night, as real as she had been in the daylight as a flesh and blood person. she found me at the edge of a canal, watching the ducks swim jagged paths in the murky water, almost restless with their need to escape the very being of who they were. she sat next to me and for a second, i thought she was my best friend, though once i realized my mistake, the feeling of familiarity did not dissipate. she was wearing a red sweater with a single, round felt covered button at the neck. it seemed to diminish her so she seemed so much smaller, so much farther way than she actually was.

you should know you're being followed, she said. i'm sorry no one has ever told you that.

she stood up and left. i noticed her feet looked too small for her body. i may or may not have said goodbye, but i watched the ducks for a while, until one of them plunged under water and despite my anxious attention, never resurfaced.