Analogue Sheep : Vol 6 : Mismemories

The house hadn’t changed.

Not really.

The white paint had flaked in places, the gate leaned, the mailbox hung open like a broken jaw, but it was still the same two-bedroom home perched at the end of the gravel lane. Still the wind-chime, dulled brass now, still the hedges grown wild around the porch.

It was her. She was the one that had changed.

Isabelle stood in the driveway for a long time before unlocking the front door. The air inside had the smell of long-settled dust and shut windows, sunlight filtering through gauze curtains her mother had sewn from old dresses.

Everything felt smaller.

Not just in size, but in significance.

The rooms were quieter than she remembered. The corners less warm. The hallway less mysterious.

She wandered through, running fingers along furniture she hadn’t seen in decades.

Here was the wall where she had once drawn a family of stick figures in crayon, scrubbed away, but not entirely.

Here was the bookshelf where she remembered her father reading Robinson Crusoe aloud, though now the shelf held only yellowed instruction manuals and church newsletters.

Here was the cupboard she’d hidden in during hide and seek, though it no longer seemed big enough for a child to curl into, and smelled faintly of damp.

She found the box in the attic.

Old photographs. Letters. Birthday cards.

A hand-drawn picture she had once made of the backyard swing, a little note in crayon scrawled beneath it:

“Best day ever!”

She smiled.

And then paused.

There had never been a swing in the backyard.

There had been talk of one - yes. She remembered her mother saying they might build one, but it had never happened.

Had it?

In the bedroom, she picked up a music box from the shelf. A ballerina twirled when opened.

She had always loved that music.

Except - no, she hadn’t. She remembered now, faintly - she’d hated the song. Found it eerie. Had asked her mother to keep it shut at night because it played when the wind rattled the lid.

And yet, for years, she had told people about the music box fondly. “My favourite thing as a kid,” she had said.

Was it a lie?

Was it just easier that way?

That night, she slept in her childhood room.

The bed was stiff. The ceiling unfamiliar. The silence no longer comforting, but cavernous.

Her dreams took her down hallways that hadn’t existed, into rooms that had never been built.

In the morning, she found herself searching the house - quietly, desperately - for something that matched the memory.

But everything had changed. Or perhaps everything had always been this way, and the past had simply worn a different face in her mind.

In the kitchen, she stood by the window with a cold cup of coffee, staring out at the garden.

She remembered her parents laughing there, hosting friends. A summer barbecue. Lights strung between trees.

But when she asked the neighbour later that day, he looked puzzled.

“There was never a party here,” he said. “Your folks didn’t really… host.”

Before she left, she walked the house once more.

She didn’t take anything with her. Not the photos. Not the letters.

She left them for the next occupants, or for time to swallow whole.

At the door, she paused, one hand on the knob, one glance back.

“It was good here,” she said aloud.

And then, quieter:

“Wasn’t it?”