The Water Sounds Like Matches

The landlord said not to worry about the sulfur smell. “Old pipes,” he shrugged. “Or maybe ghosts. This place has character.”

Ashsa smiled the way you do when you’re trying to be polite. Tight-lipped, refusing to meet the eyes.

She moved in on a Thursday. By Sunday, she had counted five inexplicable burn marks: two on the wall behind the stove, one on the baseboard near the bed, one inside the fridge (how?), and a perfect thumbprint on the ceiling above the shower.

The water ran warm, then scalding, then cold. The air smelled like burnt hair. Ashsa washed herself quickly.

In the mirror: always just her face, but a little off. As if her eyes remembered something her skin refused to confess.

The neighbors were quiet, except for the woman upstairs who dropped marbles at 3:17 a.m. every morning. Not rolling marbles—just dropping them. One per night.

Ashsa never complained. She used to play marbles, until one day on the playground when she lost them all. Like that scene from Amelie, they went scattering along the ground quicker than she could scoop them up. She never lived it down.

She worked from home—data cleanup for a dying app—and took her breaks on the fire escape, chain-smoking beside her fern. It thrived in the smoke. Like she imagined coal becomes a diamond.

One afternoon, the mail brought a letter addressed to The Woman in 3C, no return address. Inside: a single sentence. I forgive you.

She checked with the postman. He blinked, confused. “This building’s condemned.”

She laughed. “You just delivered to it.”

He looked past her. “You want me to take it back?”

She went upstairs.

Apartment 3C had no door. Just black plastic sheeting stapled to a frame. Behind it, silence thick enough to taste. She opened her mouth to call out, but the silence rushed in too fast. It filled her throat.

She swallowed it.

Back downstairs, the fern was gone. In its place: a glass of water. Boiling.

Her fingertips began to wrinkle. She hadn’t touched it.

That night she dreamed of striking a match underwater, and it worked. It burst to life like a secret remembered.

She didn’t wake up.

Instead, she moved backward.

Wednesday: The movers haul boxes into the truck.

Tuesday: Her resignation letter unsent, her boss unfired.

Monday: Her landlord un-shrugs. “You’ll hate this place,” he says, but he smiles like he’s done her a favor.

Sunday: The burn marks are gone.

Saturday: She opens the door. The apartment is empty. Airless. Expectant.

Friday: She signs the lease. Her pen leaves no ink.

Thursday: The building is ashes. Police tape. Char.

A firefighter turns to her and says, “We found the body in the tub. Water still running.”

Ashsa looks down.

Her hands are wrinkled. She hasn’t touched anything.

She tries to say, I think I live there, but the words come out backwards.

She coughs up a marble.

She drops it.

It lands with a sound like a match being struck.