Chapter 38: What Was left Behind, IV
Time passed, but it didn't move.
The hours folded into each other. Mornings bled into dusk without shape. I ate when the halls emptied. Slept when the light failed. I spoke only when I had to.
I returned to my routines, but they didn't return to me. My body sat through lectures. My hand took notes I never read. I smiled when I was expected to and answered when I was addressed. But the words had no texture. They slid past me like steam on glass.
Something essential had been left behind in Weißer Hirsch. I could still feel the wind in the orchard. Still see the way Clara turned her head before she looked at me. The way the silence between us had held more weight than words.
Now that silence had followed me back. And it was no longer gentle.
Clara had vanished. Not in the literal sense—she still existed, I was sure. But something—or someone—was keeping her from me. Holding her at a distance I couldn't cross.
It wasn't logical. It wasn't evidence-based. But it pressed at the edge of my thoughts like pressure building in a sealed room.
I couldn't explain it. But I could feel it.
***
It started small.
A note I left for myself vanished from my desk drawer—a quote from a lecture I didn't want to forget. At first I thought I had misplaced it, or thrown it out by accident. Then, a journal page—torn and crumpled—appeared in my coat pocket, though I didn't remember putting it there. The ink was smeared. The date didn't make sense.