What is Left Behind
He's not really sure how he ended up back at the flat. He doesn't remember getting a cab, or walking back, or anyone giving him a ride. Doesn't really matter, anyway. He's back, he's safe, there's a mug of tea on the table before him, and that's all that matters.
Though he doesn't remember where the tea came from either.
He sits there, and thinks. It's different now, looking at the things around him. Just things; just lifeless, unfeeling things. Objects. But they're different now, because he won't ever claim them again. They were his, and now he's gone.
There are, of course, the iconic things, the ones everyone notices because they're so him. The skull, grinning blankly with an "I-told-you-so" expression on the mantle. The violin, propped against the fireplace with a sheaf of music in a haphazard pile. The beakers and bottles and Bunsen burners cluttering the kitchen. He notices all of those, of course. But it's more the small things that strike him the hardest. A pile of wadded scraps of paper—he had been working out a cipher. A half-full coffee cup on the table that would need washing soon. A list of library books pinned to the refrigerator. Those needed to be returned.
He understood those things. He was just like them.
The things left behind.