Tyranny of an Empty Room.

"Who's in there?"

He asked.

"No one."

She whispered.

"Why are you whispering then?"

"I really don't know the atmosphere is getting to me, there's an ambient stillness in the cold."

"Go inside, could be warmer."

"Will you if I do?"

"I'll hold your hand and make sure to pull you out."

She pushes the door open, it creeks all the way through, a soft thud against the wall and the clothes hanging on the coat hooks.

"Do you see anything?"

He asked her, his voice echoing around her.

"I've found it"

She exclaimed.

"You're bluffing"

"No really look, it was here"

She shows him a novel bound in leather, her name felted with gold over it.

Agatha Ellis

"Good, can we go back now?"

He implored her.

"Can I tell you something..." She pronounced, "... I don't want to go back."

"Hahah, it's not like you can."

He turns around, points at the door behind them.

It's shut, latched from the inside"

"We weren't outside."

He tells, "You were on this bed"

She looks around her, she's seated on a bed, the leather bound novel in her hand; open at the hundred and second page.

Agatha wipes the drool of the side of her chin up to the edge of her lip. She reaches for the curtain beside her bed, and pushes, letting the brilliant yellow cast of the morning into her bedroom.

She looks around at the room, its wide space almost audible.

"Okay, enough sleeping in."

-Anand Surya Sathyamurthy.