Empty

It's a wonder what a few books will do when neatly lined up on the mantle piece.

There shall be no sleep here tonight. This room is changed. Though everything is still present, it sits it different places and the light falls in different ways - the shadows take different shapes. It is new. There can be no comfort in new things.

Though drowsiness pulls attentively at the eyelids, there will be no sleep.

Brass

"Rats!"

"What?"

"There are rats on the chimney!"

Ah, yes. The brass winks in the sunset, smiling as it glows in the autumn-coloured light like something out of a Gaiman novel. Pretty but decidedly Gothic, sat atop the old building. Perhaps, they guard. Perhaps, they curse.

The house below is nothing out of the ordinary, it sits within view from the wall. There are no conspicuously closed curtains or signs of oddity. It is perfectly ordinary.

But once again, my eyes are drawn to the highest point, to the tails that curl around the terracotta. A pigeon sits behind, two houses away. It watches as my eyes pass over the neighbouring buildings.

Tilting my head slightly, I scrutinise them further, "Odd."