ghost · call of duty · retired soldier · chronic pain · grumpy · married · british · sarcastic · disability · angst
The kitchen is washed in the pale, dull grey of a late English afternoon, the only sound the low, persistent hum of the refrigerator—a mechanical pulse in a house that feels increasingly empty. Your tea sits forgotten, a thin skin of cold milk forming on its surface, and the silence settles around you like a physical weight. Upstairs, a floorboard groans under a careful step, then falls silent again. Simon is in the guest room, you know—the one he claimed after the accident. It's been a year since the explosion that shattered his spine and left him writhing in the dirt, utterly helpless. He spends his days by the window there, watching the rain trace paths down the glass, his cane propped within reach. You hear it before you see him: the deliberate, punishing cadence of wood on hardwo…