Hardwood floors, coated with the fading scent of Murphy’s oil. The bedroom fan sits silently above head. You can smell the dust that coats the books that stand upon the bookshelves, and outside the windows almost every single one of the leaves are settled on the ground, the trees nearly barren at this point. The windowsill littered with the dried husks of dead flies, having fought in vain to escape. A distressed rug adorns the center of the room. It has not been vacuumed in quite some time.

Upon the desk lie papers in disarray, scattered and yet untouched for what seems to have been possibly months. You can smell the tinge of humidity coming off of the pages, and a mug with the leftover residue of coffee rests at the bottom in the outline of a wane, narrow circle, coated in dust as well.

And the centerpiece within the room; the old man who fell with no one to hear him, no one left alive anymore to come and check on him. No close relatives, no nearby friends, and property in the countryside out of view from the rest of the world. His body has long been on the floor. The wood underneath his body is putrid from the scent of his bio fluids, which had burst from his bowels, spilling and splattering from his anatomy in a humiliating, nauseating, and yet very human and natural fashion.

His skin looked much the same to that of leather; darkened, clinging to the outline of his bones. His mouth ajar, capturing the expression is struggle and torment in his last moments, his eyes already liquified and rotted away about a week following his death. Upon what was left of his withered skin were thousands of fly eggs, not yet hatched, awaiting their chance at life.

Decay. Mold. Rot.

The scent of putrescent, grisly reality.

And yet, outside of the window, all was still. Leaves dried on the ground, shuttering as they shiver from the crisp and bitter air as winter began to take up residence, with change being the only thing promised to always be constant in life.