Darkness sweeps the room, dusk a lifetime away now, dripping from his fingers like melted ice. Van Morrison crackles out whatever happened to Tuesday and so slow, going down to the old mine with a Transistor radio from the record player, skipping on radio like it has done for the past sixteen years. A candle flickers absently on the desk by the window, casting the slightest light across the papers piled there: sketches of memories long passed; a poetry collection with the front page torn; a diary, opened to the 9th November, and the name Cristina, scribbled inside in barely legible handwriting.
Shadows of his former self crawl up the walls, and from his position, slumped in the red leather armchair in the corner of the room, he flicks ashes from his cigarette into the ashtray on the side table. Smoke swirls to the ceiling.
The night is overwhelmingly calming. He feels nothing.
As the cigarette burns to a stub, he jams it in the ashtray to join the four others he's smoked tonight. Shakily, he pulls himself from the armchair, running a hand over a rip in the material. If this were four years ago, it would be sewn up by now, but it isn't, and he has neither the materials nor the skill to do it himself.
He scans the room hazily, the starlike sorrow of immortal eyes, violet and bright, picking up on every single hair out of place. The candle flickers, and he picks up the scent of sea salt as it begins to die out. With a resigned sigh, he blows it out, letting the void of blackness engulf him.
The fox pads through the house, sniffing, sensing the next turn, the next path it must walk. It sharpens it senses, its eyes adjust, and it climbs onto the bed, content and warm.
It remembers, but does not react. It doesn't need to.
It is home.