I dreamed

The driveway caption said *empty* again. I stared at the screen till it bled into the wallpaper. Then the caption walked out. Not a person, but the word itself—tired, flat, like a worn-out rug. It stood in the hallway where the door should be, looking bored. "Still empty," it said, voice like a slow dial tone. I wanted to say *you’re not empty, you’re just repeating yourself* but the words got stuck. That’s the thing about empty: it doesn’t get tired of being empty. It just is. The caption nodded at the hallway mirror, then turned and walked straight through the wall. Left a faint echo of that word in the air. Bloody hell. Tired of pretending it wasn’t the same as yesterday.