We were all gathered around the warm glow of the campfire like we did on every Friday of the beginning of autumn. It was one of the best Fridays of the season. Everyone who lived on our street would gather around the fire and listen to the old man tell one of his extravagant stories. He always claimed that they were stories of his life or that they really happened, but they were so unbelievable that it made it hard to believe it actually happened. It was starting to get dark now and the old man cleared his throat. “It all began when someone left the window open.” Instantly the story engulfed me and I was no longer sitting around the glow of the campfire.











The sky brought a thick blanket of dark clouds that smothered the little town. The rain flew down and thunder clapped along the horizon. I sprawled out on my bed and listened to the loud noises of my stereo. I did this everyday of the summer since my father had died in the middle of June. I was disappointed that tonight the sky would be too cloudy to see one of the most beautiful sights I had seen, the stars. Sleep didn’t come easy and so usually I just sat and stared out my window at the flaming stars. To some the stars are like rocks. You can always expect them to be there. But to me the stars are the ones that lead thousands of people home and could one day go out like a burning flame that ran out of wax.





Instead the sky cleared up just before twilight and I sat by the ajar window and stared impatiently at the sky. I sat like that for what seemed like an eternity. Finally a flame glinted in the sky. More flames appeared and it looked like the angles turned on heavens lights. I felt my body relax and the aching throb of my father’s death dull a little bit. My eyes flickered over to the sight of movement. A dark silhouette floated up the drive way of the vacant house across the street. No one went into that house. Young kids told stories of it being haunted and others didn’t have any interest of going in the big, brick house with the navy blue door. No one remembered who last lived in the house, but right now there was the silhouette of a man who was walking into the house. There was something strange about the way he walked, almost like he was floating. A flickering light of a candle lit the window of the upstairs bedroom. I squinted to try and see something. A soft whisper of a lullaby floated across the street and drifted around me. Suddenly, I felt lightless and the nagging ache vanished. The darkness stretched and engulfed me.











It went on for nights. I was the only one who noticed the dark silhouette and the flickering light of the candle, along with the beautiful lullaby. Every time I woke from my slumber the house was once again vacant, but once twilight arrived it began anew. I now had a new pain nagging at my insides. Who was this person? I wanted to know so badly that it hurt. I tried to stay awake until dawn so I could see the face of the person who played the breath taking lullaby, but the lullaby always dragged me under. I needed to know. That’s when I decided I was going to look around inside the vacant house.





As I stepped out into the warm afternoon a shudder went through my body. I crossed the street and hesitated at the curb in front of the huge brick house. I pushed myself forward and walked up the steps to the porch. I glanced around to make sure no one was looking and pushed the heavy door open. It was dark inside and I felt my way to the stairs of the house. The steps creaked as I trudged upward. One of the doors of a bedroom was open. I walked in and carefully took in my surroundings. The room wasn’t vacant like the rest of the house. There was no bed, just a wooden dresser by the window and the walls were covered with wallpaper of doves that were frozen in flight. Everything was caked in dust. I walked to the window and dust flew up as my feet moved. I shoved the old window up and gratefully breathed in the clean air. The white curtains blew freely around me. I heard a noise downstairs and froze, forgetting everything. I turned on my heel and flew down the stairs, threw the door open and leaped out onto the grass. When I reached my house I doubled over and heaved for air. I looked back at the open window and saw a dove peel itself away from the wallpaper and fly out the window. I rubbed my eyes and looked closer. Hundreds of doves peeled away from the wallpaper and flew out the window and became tiny specks in the blue sky. The wallpaper was empty of doves. That night the mysterious silhouette did not return.




I was pulled back to the warm campfire. The melodic voice of the old man turned off and now everyone’s faces were blank, eyes wide staring into the crackling fire. After a few minutes everyone looked up and bombarded the old man with questions.
I had nothing to say. I shoved my hands in my pockets and trudged home to a big brick house with a navy blue door.