6
Kaiya peered through the door to her parents’ room. For three years she had avoided entering, conscious that her presence would disturb its patient, melancholy peace. Already the musty air shifted, trembling towards the doorway that had contained it for so long. She stepped inside, surveying the reminder of her parents’ existence. A nightie waited, unmoved, thrown carelessly onto rumpled sheets. A tablet lay on her mother’s bedside table. And on the bucket chair in the corner of the room, draped over its back, was her father’s uniform.
Kaiya stepped inside and drew a slow breath. Time had not disintegrated the lingering scent of a two-thirds empty bottle of perfume, or was that simply her imagination responding to the stimulus of her context and the chasmic desires of her imagination?
