Julia heard her own voice for the first time in months. It came out hoarse, strained, like it had fought its way through a layer of dust settled on her vocal cords and time itself:
“Good morning.”
It wasn’t a greeting. It was a test—her voice unsure if it even had the right to speak. It sounded like it belonged to another life, one where bathroom doors slammed in the morning, kettles whistled in the kitchen, and small bare feet ran to show her how a pea had sprouted on cotton wool in an old honey jar.
Julia opened her eyes to thick silence. The ceiling—dim and greyish, like faded sky—hung perfectly still above her, lifeless. The flat was warm, but a faint draught brushed the edge of the curtain. She’d left the window open again. Or maybe not forgotten, but left it that way on purpose. Just in case a child’s laughter drifted through. Or footsteps. Or breathing.
She lay on her back, motionless, as if staring long enough at the cracks in the plaster might reveal a path—a way out of this endless grey room and, more importantly, out of herself.
The kitchen stayed frozen in place. A mug with dried coffee on the windowsill, as if waiting for yesterday to start again. A darkened apple on the cutting board, left behind like forgotten conversations. And a photo on the fridge: a boy of about six, dressed as an astronaut, grinning like he was about to ask, *”Mum, am I really going to space?”*
She hadn’t touched the photo in over a year. Her hand would hover, afraid of wearing the memory away. The picture clung to a magnet from a children’s eye clinic—funny, when she thought about it. They’d gone in “just for a check-up.” Her son had complained that letters kept running away. But in the end… it wasn’t glasses or a prescription. It ended differently. With something no one is ever ready for. A place with no way back.
By the door, a pair of little trainers with blue Velcro straps—dusty, silent. Tiny witnesses to time. Julia walked past them every day, barely daring to breathe, as if touching them would make everything crumble. Just a pair of children’s shoes. Plastic, fabric, soles. And yet—a whole life. A universe folded into twenty centimetres.
She used to love mornings. Coffee brewing, music playing. Now it was boiling water with green tea, no sugar, no lemon. The bitterness slid down her throat like words left unsaid. Outside, the city slowly stirred: buses, cigarette smoke, a dog barking, neighbours shouting. The city lived, unaware that somewhere nearby, someone had stopped long ago.
Julia used to teach literature. At a college in Manchester. She adored Shakespeare—for the restraint, the pain between the lines, the pauses where you could hide. After… she left. First on sick leave, then into nothing. Never went back. Couldn’t. Then didn’t even want to. Reading became unbearable; words tore at her ribs from the inside.
In spring, a friend dragged her to a support group. The smell of cheap vending machine coffee, grey walls worn thin by time and strangers’ stories. A woman in a red jumper, widowed. A quiet twenty-year-old clutching his backpack all evening. No one screamed, but the air hummed with pain, like a stretched violin string.
Julia felt out of place. Like her loss was too private. Too invisible. No grave, no date, no goodbye. As if she wasn’t allowed to grieve out loud. So she left. Quietly. Never returned.
Sometimes she wrote letters. Never sent them. Just saved them in a folder on her laptop called *Drafts*. She wrote to him.
*”You’d be starting Year One now. You’d probably hate porridge. We’d argue in the mornings. Or maybe you’d be quiet. You’d know the smell of my hair. I’d braid it if you were a girl. But you’re my boy. My astronaut. My ‘Mum, look!’. My hope.”*
Sometimes she didn’t finish. Just put a full stop. No follow-up. No explanation.
Today, her voice didn’t come from emptiness—but from somewhere deeper. It didn’t beg or ache. It just was. And suddenly, that was enough.
For the first time in ages, Julia wanted to go outside. Just to step out. No reason. No purpose. Just to feel the pavement under her feet again.
She dug out her coat—hadn’t worn it in ages. Pulled on her boots. Paused. Listened to the old floorboards sigh beneath her soles. Inside, a strange tremor. Not fear. Not pain. Something else. Like something returning.
She walked to the fridge. Took the photo. Gently peeled off the magnet. Ran her finger over her son’s face, his wide, living smile.
“Come on, my astronaut. I need to learn how to live again,” she whispered.
Opened the door. Took a step. Then another.
And for the first time in a year—she closed the window.
Not from pain. Not from fear. Just… because she realised she could. And maybe—she needed to.
