“What is your name?”

The man stood there in her doorway unmoved, his lips flat, his eyes simply resting upon her own. He gave no reply to her question, and walked into her house, uninvited, but not unstoppable. She didn’t make any effort to push him back or make him go away.

He looked around, through the hall, for a second, taking it in, before settling to look through the doorway to the right, leading to a kitchen. It looked pleasant enough. There were various, colourful cups and mugs on the countertop across the room, and beside them, a glass vase, with some baby-blue roses sticking out.

“Have you ever heard of a coda?” he asked.

“No. What is that?”

“It’s the word for the end of a piece of music. It’s the last few notes, before that moment when the last trace of the song still reverberates, and sustains. And then the sound is over. Oh, I also wanted to tell you that those flowers are pretty.”

“Thank you, though they are fake,” the woman said. “Paper flowers.”

He nodded to this, and made his way further into the plain, white hall, his steps softly sounding out, and stopped to look through another doorway, again on the right side. This room was not quite as obvious. All he could see of it was a couch. Clean, but not particularly fascinating. Made from blue fabric, with pillows at each end. The lights were turned off in that room, casting the rest into darkness.

“Your home is really beautiful. It reminds me of the one I forever wanted. Like a wave in the sea, like a dandelion seed floating away through a field. One where time did not pass.”

“I don’t really go in there anymore,” she said, looking into the living room alongside him. “I don’t really have a reason to stay in there. I live in my room. The couch is dusty.”

“Does the couch ever get lonely, just being there, no-one ever sitting in it?”

“I suppose you could put it that way.”

“That’s a shame. Maybe one of these days, you could pay it a visit. See who it’s been thinking about.”

The man’s gaze turned away once again, him heading again towards the end of the hall. Where there was a white doorway, the door pulled wide open, letting him see into it clearly. He spoke as he walked through, the woman still following close behind.

“But really, the song’s not over. No, the song’s never over. Simply gone to be heard again elsewhere.”

He gingerly walked in his dirty boots across her soft carpet, and without asking, he sat down upon the white bedspread, with a pattern of tulips, the thin green stems soft of colour, and the pink petals soft of colour, and faded, and weak. The mattress giving way, deforming under him. He put his hand on it. A worn hand, a nicked, and scratched, and scarred hand, with short, messily trimmed nails, the inside of the palm rough and wrinkled. He ran that hand over the bedspread. It was cool, and silky.

“Is this the place where you sleep?” he asked, looking to the head of the bed, where there was a plushie of a lion, tucked in, resting upon the pillow. Mane proud and flowing in all directions.

“Sometimes. Others, I don’t have enough energy to clean my bed enough to accommodate me, and I collapse on the floor.”

“It’s a very nice bed. I couldn’t think of a better place to close my eyes.” He sat there, simply running his hand over it for a few seconds before he continued. “What do you dream about?”

She didn’t speak for a second, as if the answer were something she wanted to keep close to her chest, but ultimately decided to share her mind. “I dream of a tiny world, where nothing else exists, except for me, and my clean little room. And I live my entire life, and I live my entire day, but all within that room. And there is no sun, out there, to cast its light in through the window, but there is a tree. Its verdant leaves blooming, close to the glass, almost brushed up against it. Its bark extending down, to some point, somewhere, in the surrounding black void.”

“Do you ever dream about trains?” the man asked.

“Trains? No, I do not.”

“I dream of trains. I dream of a train, passing in the night, through a field of grass made blue in the moonlight, passing by beaming streetlights. Everyone in the train is asleep, not a care in the world. Safely travelling to their destination, unaware of the blissful paradise they’re already in.” He pushed himself up off of her bed. It had been nice and made before, the bedsheets pulled tight and firm, the inside pure, and ready for someone to slip in. And now, it was not. The shape of the blanket grown wavy, and messy under his jeans, and warm. Tainted. Used.

He walked back out. Through the bedroom doorway, down the hallway, and finally, out onto the doormat outside. He didn’t walk away, though. He stayed there, looking back at the woman, watching her with sad eyes. His face illuminated from behind by the setting sun, evening air blowing into the house past him and past her.

The man blinked, as if coming out of a trance. He asked, “What is your name?”

She closed the door, in his face, and all memory of him washed away from her mind, like dirt from a window. And outside, behind the door, the man no longer existed.