It was surprising that time seemed to slip away so quickly, the sun making its escape to the dark horizon while the two wolves were inside and almost oblivious to the dusty light fading. Hemming was a little startled to learn that they must have been in there for a few hours; within that little house time seemed static, as if it was frozen in the exact moment that its owners ceased to live. But time did not stop for those that had gone away, instead leaving space for the little critters to move in, the centipedes and the worms that were always the first to find their place in a world that was forgotten. The gray wolf was content with his lot, his pile of books and the wiggly thing, but if Princess wanted to pop into another house or two before the sun fell away completely he would be happy to. He turned to her as she spoke, lowering his hand as he turned his back on the sun's sharp glare. "If you want to, we could take a peek," he said, smiling softly. These houses looked fairly different from each other on the outside, and perhaps they looked different on the inside, too. A glimpse into some of them as the light was fading would be interesting, but there was little time for an inspection as full as the last.
Altering his path a little, Hemming moved towards the house beside the one that they had been in and stared through a front window. In the fading light, it was hard to make out the forms of the furniture. Thinking about how, once upon a time, one might have gazed through these windows and seen a bustle of human activity inside gave Hemming the strangest feeling. Now, everything was darkness and dust. |