They said the house was empty, yet every night the floors remembered footsteps. The child learned early that grief has a shape ~ tall, hollow, draped in familiarity. It never spoke, never moved on its own, but it was always there when the lights went out, looming like a memory that refused burial. The child wrapped his arms around it, not for comfort, but to keep it from growing larger. The figure fed on silence, on unasked questions, on love that had nowhere left to go. Holding it close was the only way to survive ~ because if the child ever let go, the thing might finally turn around and show its face.