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Curtain Call


Even the sunlight seemed to know. Winter-pale morning rays streamed into my old home, touching walls  and floor that no longer answered back. The place is barren now. Most of his possessions are gone; only a few pieces of furniture survived the determined brooms we called “cleaning up.” This is not how the sunlight remembers it. Once, the house was a home—cluttered, full of the bespoke settings Dad wanted. Even the birds have stopped visiting. They know too.


I sat on his sofa, numb with memory. My hands lingered on the door handles he must have touched a thousand times. I looked down at the street to see what his eyes might have seen each morning.

“It’s time,” my brother says. A quiet curtain call.

I take one last look at the room, pull the door shut, and slide my hand along the banister for the final time. Heavy steps. A few photos of an eerily silent home. And a heart carrying everything we could not leave behind.

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