The house was empty against the summer sky. The windows were shuttered and silent. A tired wind blew through the dilapidated the swing set. Insects respectfully fell silent and the clouds sank low touching the grey slate roof waiting. In the dry August evening, the sun set earlier than in July. The dark sky echoed the last words of lovers who once sat on the porch holding hands, watching the stars and clouds that hung in the evening sky.

Lovers giggled on the porch, asked themselves what they would talk about when they were old. They decided they would be forgetful by then and would say the same things over and over, but it would not matter. What mattered is that they would be together. They would be together and everything else was temporary.

A rowboat had once leaned against the side of the house. Bobbing happily in the water on summer evenings meant for fishing and taking your clothes off secretly for a swim when no one could see your body in the moonlight. Your body turning in the gentle cool waves. The laughter of a child twice welled up from the ground but fell back down in the dust heavy with the gravity that pulled it back into the depth of the earth. The old, tired wind wound about the house now carrying dust, scattering it upon the house so it settled in the thirsty drainpipes. In the lifeless heat, everything had stopped and sat in dutiful silence.