OLD TOM

Tom spent his adult life trying to help his family. Out of affection? He didn’t know. Failing anyway.

After passing away, he felt compelled to keep at it. Only he wasn't Tom anymore. The haunting made his family move away. Tom stood alone in the empty house with his failure.

Then, he didn’t know exactly how long after they'd gone (it had felt like forever), men with machines came.

Tom hovered while the house he had built was torn down, smashed, and carried away, and wondered why on earth he was lingering there. Wasn't there supposed to be somewhere else to go? Up or down, it didn't matter. Where was that light that always seemed to appear in that TV series his wife was addicted to? The one with the sexy brunette who saw ghosts. He roamed the now-empty lot looking for a place where the light might be hiding. Failed.

The building crew arrived a few days later. They built a smart-looking bungalow in no time. Tom thought it looked like something out of Star Trek.

A man moved in soon after the new house was finished. He had a ton of gadgets and no family.

He's still there now. They both are.

The man works from home. Tom has noticed he passes gas all the time, unabashedly, and finds it quite liberating. They both do.

The new guy keeps making coffee enough for two in the morning without knowing why, yet somehow feeling it's the right thing to do.

Sometimes, when the light starts to fade outside but it's not dark yet, he notices the old oak in the backyard and thinks of his mother's grandfather, the man who planted it a hundred years ago. The same man who bought the land he's inherited. His namesake. Old Tom.

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