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On summer nights, when the city's power failed and every window A.C. unit groaned to a stop, we’d race up the attic stairs to play the blackout game. Closed up in the heat, breathing in dust from ancient mounds of insulation scattered about warped floorboards, we sat and listened. First you'd hear the almost-silence. Muffled voices on the landing below. Distant car horns. A nervous cough within our circle. Then, the second silence-the one behind the soft sounds. It was darker, more intimate. It filled the musty room and pressed itself in close around us like a fever. Only if you stayed until the end would you hear the third silence-the one we never talked about after the game. A non-sound so deep it came from inside you-like the space between heartbeats, like dread itself, like the hum of blood in your temples. One by one, as we hit our limits, we’d flee the attic and go down to play truth or dare, or pester our beleaguered parents as they fanned themselves with yesterday's newspaper. The game had no winner, No prizes. But I’m certain every child who climbed up those attic stairs came down carrying something new inside them. Something ancient and dark and relentlessly silent. Something waiting for another blackout to bring it out again.
Short story written by Peter Chiykowski
website twitter facebook instagramStory prompt taken from a photo by Erik Witsoe
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