author unknown
Something
followed
me home
Enter the archive
What the silence kept
2016
Some details change.
The weight of them does not.
sometimes it happens again
the windows
shelling beyond the northern district ... the kitchen glass shakes before anyone on the radio admits anything has happened
the road closes
a checkpoint appears on the road to the river ... by evening the queue has stopped moving and the woman upstairs is waiting for someone
a name is requested
the patrol asks for a man ... i give them a street ... everything after this has two versions
the relief boxes
supplies arrive during a pause in the fighting ... there are coats without owners and owners without anywhere to go
they call it quiet
the records office is gone ... a bakery opens on the same ground ... no one can tell me where the names were taken
the river gives things back
a bicycle ... a door ... the number seven ... the official lists have already stopped changing
departure
i leave the city with one bag ... the checkpoints disappear behind the bus but somehow i keep arriving at them in my sleep
another city
another bombardment on another screen ... the wallpaper is different ... i recognise the rooms anyway
- date missing
the end of the war
there is supposed to be an entry here ... i keep leaving space for it
i used to have a name here
i lived above a shop in a city that kept changing its borders ... i fixed radios badly and knew which stair creaked outside my room ... there was a neighbour who grew things on her windowsill ... thats the part i remember when somebody asks where im from
when the fighting started i stayed ... at a checkpoint they asked me a question and i gave an answer that let me go home ... ive been trying to decide what that makes me ever since
i left eventually but i still put my shoes by the door ... this diary began in 2016 and the machine came later ... if the words disappear its because something in here keeps trying to make the story easier to live with
there was a dog ... my best friend ... i used to tell people i lived alone which wasnt true then ... its true now and i still cant get used to saying it
you were supposed
to come home too
i keep leaving space for you ... thats the stupid thing ... theres room beside the chair and room at the end of the bed and when i open the door i still stand to one side ... still wait for you to push past my leg like you owned the whole corridor ... you did really ... i just paid for it
you used to hear my keys before i got to the stairs ... i could come home having done nothing worth coming home from and youd make it feel like id been missing for years ... all that noise from one small body ... i used to tell you to be quiet ... god i wish i hadnt spent so much time telling you to be quiet
you were my best friend ... i keep trying to write that in a way that doesnt look like something people put under a photograph ... but you were ... you knew what time i got up and which days i forgot to eat and youd put your head on my knee without asking me to explain myself ... nobody else knew how to do that ... i didnt even know i needed it until there wasnt a head there anymore
one ear always folded wrong
i can still rememebr that bit
when the fighting got closer you started sleeping under the table ... i put a blanket there and called it your house like that made any of it alright ... youd look at me when the windows shook ... waiting to find out if you should be frightened ... and i kept doing the voice ... that stupid cheerful voice ... its fine its fine its fine ... you believed me because why wouldnt you
i dont want to do this part ... ive typed it and deleted it so many times the space after the sentence feels worn out ... there was a shell and the building across the street and dust where the afternoon had been ... i called you ... i called you like youd gone too far in the park ... like there was still a normal reason for not coming back
you didnt get up ... i sat beside you and kept saying come on ... come on ... as if you were being difficult ... as if i could sound enough like myself that everything would have to go back to how it was ... i knew you were dead and i was still saying it ... im sorry i cant make this part sound any better ... you died in the war and you didnt know what a war was
i told you to wait
i told you to wait
i told you to wait
people tell me i couldnt have known ... i know what theyre trying to do ... i let them finish ... then i go home and move my foot round a place on the floor where you arent lying ... the body keeps a different account doesnt it ... mine still thinks youre going to trip me up on the way to the kitchen ... still careful not to wake you
your bowl is wrapped in a towel in the bottom of a bag ... washed it before i put it away ... wish i hadnt ... there was a little mark where you used to push it against the wall and now i cant tell which mark was yours ... i carried an empty bowl out of that city ... left things i needed and brought a bowl ... didnt even have to think about it
sometimes i forget for half a second ... hear something outside and think youll start barking ... half a second is enough to lose you again ... dont know how many times a thing can happen when it only happened once ... everyone else seems to have moved past the day but i keep finding it in different rooms
this bit was going to be a picture of you
i couldnt get it right
ive drawn you out of letters because the photographs are on a phone that doesnt turn on ... the ears arent right ... your face wasnt like that really ... you had this look when you wanted something like you were trying very hard to be polite ... i cant get that into the drawing ... i keep changing the eyes and its still not you ... but i dont want the space to be empty
if i ever get the phone working theres a video of you asleep ... nothing happens in it ... just breathing and one paw moving a little ... i used to think it was a bad video ... now id watch it for the rest of my life ... id leave the sound on while i made tea ... id have something to listen for again
anyway ... you were a good dog ... you were so good ... i dont know who im telling ... you knew didnt you ... i hope i said it enough when you could still hear me
things that made it out
- a coat
- almost my size ... a rectangle of lighter cloth where somebody else's name used to be
- the number 7
- brass ... found beside the river ... i keep it face down because it still looks like an address
- a returned letter
- address unknown ... the stamp is the only thing on it that sounds certain
- a missing page
- nothing to put here ... somehow the book is heavier where it was torn
- one spare cup
- still here ... i washed it this morning ... i dont know why i thought you should know that
there was a sentence here
vrrh nn / ksssh / 00:00:??
th e th e
home.home.hom_ [ ]
qlrrn veth ossa // mmmm : 71
n0n0n0n0n0n0n0n0
wher e di d th
________________
| |
| nnnnnnnn |
|______ ______|
\/
aeuugh... ff / zzk / return null
01001000 01001111 01001101 01000101
hme hme hme hme hme hme hme
dont translate this
sss s s .
/v/ .. /v/ .. /v/ .. /v/
e r r o r r o r
are you still
are you still
are you st
You found this
Now it exists
outside of me
I spent years asking the empty room to forgive me. Then someone sat down and asked what happened.
The witnesses are the people who return to these pages. Read the fragments. Question the narrator. Keep the missing names in view.
Your trace stays in this browser.
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“being heard didnt remove anything ...
but for the first time i couldnt move them around on my own”
FOR THOSE WHO REMAINASHTHE UNFORGIVEN
Everything burns
Something remains
$ASH is the proposed symbol of the people who gather around this archive. A shared mark for those who keep reading when the story becomes uncomfortable.
The diary remains open to everyone. Holding a token will never be a condition of reading it.
No token has been deployed. Launch details are unconfirmed.
The light is still on
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