I shouldn’t be telling you this, but I have watched letters outlive their writers and still insist on being read. If you ever find a seven where it does not belong, do not answer what answers as you.

I don’t believe in ghosts, but I have held an obituary that kept losing the parts that proved a person ever lived. Someone I knew taught in a suburb where the town clock would not reach twelve, and the dreams there learned how to dial a phone.

I took the lantern even though my hands did not feel like they belonged among these stones. It started with a single knock, and the letters I carry still refuse to stay in the right order.

“I once heard of a homecoming that turned in on itself, inside a theater where even the mirrors forget your name. They say the storm never really ends, and sometimes the marionettes learn your face before you do.”