The old house stands as a pale witness by the water's edge, its peeling paint like sun-bleached bone against the dark, unwavering treeline. Across the still lake, the forest is indifferent to the structure's slow surrender to the overcast sky. The picket fence, once a sharp boundary, now sags and sheds its skin, blurring the line between a tamed yard and the wild grass. Only the pigeons seem to understand the property's new terms, perching on the pickets and nesting behind the broken glass of a circular window. They have found a home where they want to be, untroubled by the ghosts of former lives. The silence here is not empty but thick with the rustle of wings and the slow, quiet trespass of time itself.
