EMPTY HOUSES - Caridad Cole

I stayed still in the bed and moved my eyes around the room. There were other voices outside. I was in a house. A dress was draped over the back of a teal, tufted chair in front of a large mirror. I was a woman. A small voice was screaming at me from the inside. It sounded scared and confused, and caused a ringing in my ears and my vision to blur. I took deep, labored breaths, and tried to communicate with the voice, beginning the daily wrestling match that I always won. The voice would eventually quiet; somehow, I knew that meant their soul had left like a blown-out pilot light. I waited a few more minutes for this to occur, and when it did, I began to shake. It was my mind attempting to connect with the resisting body. It was like trying to drive a car with the emergency brake on. It hurt, even more than the screams. A headache set in, and I no longer believed I had adjusted at all. The pain let me know that this day in the life was as temporary as all of my others. 

When I regained feeling in my limbs, I stood up and walked to the center of the bedroom. Light was pouring in through giant windows, and it burned my eyes. I drew the lace curtains and waved a hand in front of my face, struggling to focus on the fingers. My vision wasn’t clear enough and it worsened my headache. I needed glasses.

“Frankie! Breakfast!” someone called from outside the door. I was Frankie. I needed to find some glasses but the room was much too cluttered. I lifted pillows, pulled out drawers, overturned every symbolic stone, but there were no glasses. Perhaps Frankie didn’t want to admit to her failing vision. I considered running.

I looked around one last time for a jacket, shoes, or just some warmer clothing. Finally, a furry overcoat slithered out from a pile on the closet floor. I grabbed it as I pushed the bedroom door open, begging it not to creak. It didn’t, but the first floorboard outside of the room did. There were people, several it sounded like, waiting for Frankie. I could hear their voices clearly; they were in a room close by. There was a hallway next to the bedroom I was in, but I had no way of knowing where it led. I backed into the room again, and pushed the door just enough for it not to click closed. I was on the ground floor and there was a walkway just outside of the window. I could make it, easily. I gathered the long coat and tugged it closed as it bunched tightly on my shoulders. I hiked up the window and pushed against the screen until it gave way to my force. Before it hit the ground, I caught it, pulled it inside, and propped it against the wall. One leg first, and then the other.

“Frankie? What the hell are you doing?” Another woman was standing by the front door of the house, looking at me incredulously. We knew each other. 

“I’m… uh…,” I tried to think as I found my footing on the ground outside of the window. “I’m… going for a walk.”

“And the front door wasn’t good enough for you?” I didn’t know what to say, but the woman was smiling. She came over and took me by the arm and tried to guide me back to the front door. As goosebumps spread over my skin, I pulled us down into the grass, below the windows.

“Francesca. Seriously. What is going on? Is this some sort of… some sort of… p-prank?” she asked, her words beginning to slur. I looked at her but I knew there was never time to explain. I would, but I couldn’t.

“I’m sorry,” I said. The transfer was surprisingly painless. I wondered if this had something to do with the two bodies already being familiar with one another. Maybe they already had shared memories and shared feelings. For a moment, I had two heartbeats, and then none, and then one. Frankie was slumped over me, still shielding us from the windows. She was too heavy to push aside, and my new heartbeat quickened. Someone could have come outside looking for us at any moment. I wasn’t strong enough yet to deal with it, but I had to. I moved my left shoulder forward and backward over and over again, shrugging the old body off of me. She landed on the grass with a heavy thud. She was a hollow container.

I dragged her around the perimeter of the house, making sure to duck down the entire way. There was a small, blue shed in the backyard, somewhat hidden in the trees. I buried her––with as much care as possible given the circumstances––in a dirt pile behind it. The feathers of her coat sprouted through the soil, swaying in the wind. I pushed them in with careful fingertips. It was inconspicuous enough; the pile itself had already been an eyesore. Frankie was a withered flower and hopefully she’d be able to bloom again, among the other spring flowers. When I was finished, I stepped into the shed and closed it behind me, closing out the sunlight finally. No one could find me, which was what I had wanted, but now two lives were at stake instead of one. I heard the muffled calls for Frankie again, and this time they sounded close, outside maybe. My body was still shaking.

When I opened the door again, the sun beat down between the shed and the house. I watched two men standing next to the house, cupping their hands around their mouths as if she would better be able to hear them from under the soil. I hesitated for a moment before walking over to them. My fingertips were numb; this body wasn’t ready for this much action yet. I couldn’t quite connect with the muscles and I could feel that my gait had a strange lilt to it. The men turned towards me as soon as I neared, and I could have sworn they were staring at my feet. I lifted my head with a little more confidence. Distracting confidence. 

“What’s happened?” I asked once I had carefully sidestepped them to enter the house.

“Frankie… she wasn’t in her room. Did you find her? She never misses breakfast,” one man said.

“I didn’t. Maybe she just ran out,” I offered.

“Yeah, I guess so,” he said. As he nodded, seemingly okay with that explanation, the other man reached for my hand. It was much too soon to change again so I slightly angled away from him, holding my hands up to my chest.

“You look worried, Love. I’m sure she’s okay,” he said to me. I nodded and attempted a smile, but the corners of my mouth weren’t cooperating yet. It may have been a grimace. Reaching for me again, he said, “come on. You should splash some cool water on your face.”

“Okay,” I agreed. He led me to another bedroom, one that was decorated more maturely than Frankie’s. It had a bigger bed and a lot of framed portraits. I studied each smiling face, some alone and some in groups, many with this woman. She had a lot of people who loved her. She screamed and cried on the inside and I felt a knot in my stomach. One frame contained the woman, appearing much younger, with an infant in her lap. I picked up the frame and tried to recognize the young woman as my new self, but it was nearly impossible. Any time I had tried in the past, my mind wouldn’t allow it. I had once been an elderly man for almost a month without ever being sure of what I looked like. In the mirror, my eyes drifted. It didn’t matter whose eyes I had, if I didn’t have their soul to match. I tried not to think about it too often.

“Are you all right?” The man had snuck up behind me during my daydreaming. I jumped at the sound of his voice and promptly spun around, making sure to keep a reasonable distance between us. Another photo fell out of the frame I was still clutching. It was small and folded up, having been carefully tucked into a corner. I glanced at the man, who had a questioning look on his face, before slowly bending down to retrieve the photo. I unfolded it to find another baby picture. A different baby, I was fairly sure. I had so many questions, but I couldn’t ask them.

“You’re kind of worrying me, Rose. Please tell me what’s going on. You don’t want to be touched right now. You’ve made that clear, and it’s fine. But please… what is it? You want to see the girls?” he gestured to the photos in my hands. “Does this have something to do with Frankie? Don’t just stare at me. Please.”

“The girls…”

“Are with your mother, of course,” he finished. I was Rose and I was a mother. It was one of my worst nightmares because I knew I would eventually kill this body no matter how hard I tried to hold onto it. She needed to live, for her children, but she couldn’t. I felt ill. I was ill, all over the carpet. I was curled up in front of the vomit, shaking.

“Oh, Jesus! Rose, you’re sick, aren’t you? Why didn’t you say something? Let’s get you into bed. I’ll call your mother and see if she can bring the girls over here today. Does Jas have daycare on Fridays? I can’t remember. Well maybe she can just bring Gracie. She’ll be so happy to…” He started rubbing my back. I groaned with contempt. “So happy to see… to see…” And then Rose was face down in her own puke with the photos floating beside her. I looked down at her and began to cry. In one short morning, I had destroyed a household. There was nothing left to do but flee.

Making my way to the front door again – I saw no use in sneaking anymore – the last living member of the house called out to me, “Ethan! Ethan! You heading out? Is Rose sick? I heard some… pretty gross sounds.”

“Yes,” was my blanket response. Without turning, I took the heaviest coat and scarf off of the hooks by the front door, and walked out. I walked for a long time, taking every back road I found, and making minimal eye contact with passersby. Kids dragging their feet to bus stops, a running club wearing sadistic grins, one lone bird watcher unaware that he was in the presence of the rarest bird of them all. I walked until my legs ached, until the sun set and I was forced to find the light I usually avoided. 

There was a café on the corner, an old-fashioned one with a blinking neon sign that read, “COCA-COLA. COFFEE. CAKE.” The holy trinity. I opened the doors and quickly surveyed to make sure it wasn’t too crowded. There was one woman working behind the counter, polishing a fork.

“Sit anywhere,” she said without looking up at me.

I huddled into a corner booth and hid behind a menu. I thought about the morning and what should come next, if anything could come next. I had buried Frankie, but Rose lay in a crumpled pile on the floor. That man would have found her right away. He would have called the police, told them how suspiciously I had left the house. They would have started their manhunt. Ethan was surely wanted. For the first time, I actually wanted to leave a body, as soon as possible. The alternative was to get arrested, probably become one or two police officers, and then some inmates, and then I would be doomed to bounce from imprisoned body to imprisoned body. I was already imprisoned, and I couldn’t handle more of it.

I peered out of the sticky window next to me, and examined faces in the dark. They all stared at their feet while they shuffled by, except for one. A young, round face looked back at me, questioning my gaze. I pulled back from the window. When I looked out again just a minute later, the crowd had moved on and the girl was crossing the street, coming my way. She looked like a mesmerized child. We locked eyes and I wasn’t exactly sure why, but in that moment, she paused, and cocked her head to the side, before pushing open the front doors of the café. It started to rain, and every drop melted the faces into frowns. In a minute, the rain coated everything.

I tried to shrink more into the booth as she approached, still watching me. As repetitive and endless as life had been, I felt like I had never waited for anything as long as I had for her to reach my table. Her feet dragged. When she was finally in front of me, I saw that she was incredibly frail, bundled in too many layers for the weather. Her eyes were sunken and gleaming. Her body had the tell-tale twitch of a seasoned addict, but she was focused, on me.

“Do you know me?” she asked. I opened my mouth and then closed it before she spoke again. “I… I know you.” She took a seat across from me and rolled up the sleeves of her sweatshirt, revealing thin, bruised arms. She knew Ethan. Maybe she needed help. The waitress behind the counter eyeballed us and raised an eyebrow in concern. I smiled and straightened up in my seat so she would go back to wiping down the counter.

“I’m sorry, I have a terrible memory. Do we know each other?” I asked nervously. The girl continued to stare into my eyes, examining my frontal lobe. She put her hands on the table, and slowly inched them over to my side. Confused, I leaned back and pulled my hands to myself, stuffing them into my pockets shortly after.

“Finally,” the girl exhaled.

“I… really don’t know what you’re talking about. Who are you?” I asked.

“I don’t know my name.”

“You don’t know your name?”

“No. What’s yours?”

“Ethan.”

“Are you sure?”

“What? Am I sure?” Even though every day was a game of context clues, I was pretty sure.

“Yeah. Are you sure your name is Ethan?”

“Look, miss, I don’t what you’re getting at here, but I’m fairly certain the two of us are strangers. And it looks like you could use some help. Maybe I can– “

“You really can’t tell what I am? I could spot you from a mile away.” She looked around the café and scooted closer to me, almost too close. She leaned in and whispered, “I’m like you.” Startled, my eyes widened and I started to move away. I was ready to stand up when she grabbed my arm with a sleeve-covered hand. For some reason, I settled back into the booth and looked at her meaningfully. Her eyes were full of fear and trust.

“I don’t have a body of my own, either,” she admitted. I couldn’t believe the way she said it, as if she were describing a cold or an academic weakness. I don’t have a body. I don’t do well in math.

“I could tell you didn’t either. It’s something about the way you hold yourself. Like you were just born yesterday. Your muscles don’t sit quite right on your bones, you know? And you’re– you’re giving off a weird… vibe.” I only understood about half of what she was saying, but it was amazing. I had searched for others like myself, but I never would have been able to tell just by seeing one. 

“Do you know how long it’s been?” she asked. I shook my head and she agreed, “I don’t know either. I can’t remember stability. I stopped touching people a long time ago, but then I just started waking up in strange places. It was… so scary. And now… I don’t know. I’ve been in this same body for almost three months. I thought maybe it was mine to keep or something, but it’s falling apart. I need to leave it, but I don’t want to go back to how it was before.”

“Wait,” I finally said, “you’ve kept a body for three months? How?”

“I don’t really know. When I woke up in it, it was completely alone in an abandoned house. No one around to touch or care. Every day I waited to be yanked out, but it never happened. I thought maybe this girl didn’t have any real connections, so she didn’t fight me. She let me take over really easily, and then… I barely ever heard her voice again.”

“Unbelievable,” I managed to say.

“I want it to end,” she said.

“End?”

“I’d rather have no life than a different one every day… wouldn’t you?” 

“I guess… I’ve thought about it. But it doesn’t seem possible. Like you said, even if you don’t touch anyone, you’ll find a way into a new body.” The café really wasn’t an appropriate setting for this talk. I kept glancing at the wait staff, praying that they couldn’t hear us. 

“I have a theory,” she said. I waited for her to go on. A man walked past our table to the bathroom. When the door swung closed behind him, she continued.

“I’ve always thought that if I met someone else like me, we could touch, and… and that would be it. Because at the same moment we tried to switch bodies, well, we couldn’t, because we’d both be dying. You see? We can’t live in empty houses. The way I see it, we – whatever we are, our essence or something – would just evaporate into the air. And that would be that.” It truly was morbid conversation for a place with posters of apple pie on the walls. But I thought about it, and it did make sense. And when I remembered Rose, lying on the floor, and I felt my stomach knot up again, it seemed worth a try.

“Okay. Let’s do it.”

“Really? You’re ready to… die? Right now?” Her eyes glossed over.

“I die every day.”

We stood up and headed to the front door in single file. Wordlessly, we walked. We found a decent spot away from the streetlamps. There wasn’t anything to do but touch hands, but a heaviness hung in the air between us. We would be ending the lives of two individuals, who were really already gone, and we would be saving the lives of our future hosts. I wondered how many lives I had taken for my own. Hundreds, definitely. Thousands seemed possible. Possibly an entire town’s worth. And if I had more days like that day, taking an entire household, it would be hundreds of thousands in no time. A city of bodiless souls and soulless bodies. I didn’t even know my own name.

The girl was looking at her clunky shoes, perhaps having the same thoughts I was. A tear rolled down her cheek and landed on the left’s toe. I cleared my throat and she looked up, wiped her cheeks quickly, and took a step forward. 

“Annabelle. Her name was Annabelle. I saw it written on a bill in the house I woke up in. I know it’s her. I just wanted to… say it out loud so she can be remembered.” She tugged on her sleeves and shifted her weight awkwardly. “Thank you, Annabelle, for letting me live for a little while.” I smiled at her and she looked even smaller than before, shrinking away into nothing.

“Thank you, Annabelle,” I chimed in, “and thank you Ethan. And I’m sorry for… everything.”

I took another step toward the girl and extended my arms. She gladly entered a hug, closing the gap. At first, nothing happened. The hug was warm and tight, and a little musty. She burrowed deeper into my chest, tightening her little arms around me. My eyes were shut, giving me comfortable darkness, but then they were blinding white like my eyelids were on fire. I opened them and I still saw white all around. I was looking into the sun and it was looking back. Annabelle was nowhere. I could feel her grip but I couldn’t see her. I couldn’t speak. I was nowhere. I tried to blink to clear my vision, but there was nothing to blink. I had no eyelids, no eyes, no face. I had no body. Nobody. I had secretly hoped she and I would make the journey – to wherever we might be going – together. Air was rushing all around me. It was loud as it went through me and became me. When all of the sensations stopped, I stopped. I didn’t know how, but I was able to see again. It was still white, but with hints of familiarity. Through phosphenes, I opened my eyes and looked around. I was in a bedroom and I didn’t recognize a thing.

Originally published by Words for Charity, 2018

Caridad Cole is a speculative writer and filmmaker who has appeared in BarBar, The Taborian, Vocivia Magazine, Coffin Bell, The Worlds Within, The Garden-Variety Grimoire Anthology (The Word’s Faire Press), and The EastOver Anthology of Rural Stories, Volume II: Writers of Color (EastOver Press), among others. She is a 2025 Pushcart Prize nominee and her work in magical realism earned her three grants by Words for Charity in 2018. Her mind is in the treetops, her body is in Los Angeles, and her soul is at the bottom of the sea. Pin her down at caridadcole.com or on Instagram @astrocari