He was orphaned as a child, widowed childless in his 30s. Cancer took them all—but not him.
Instead, his heart stopped beating in the dead of night several decades later, and as he dreamt of a house he’d never lived in: a vast structure with countless windows from which seeped an unsettling light. He’d felt numb with fear but compelled to climb the front steps, push open its thick door.
There, on the threshold of the vestibule, three strangers with bright warm faces greeted him, all shouting “Happy birthday!”
He felt foolish—if grateful.
Only, how could he forget?
J S Khan’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Burial Magazine, Bruiser Magazine, Farewell Transmission, Michigan City Review of Books, The Bulb Region, and Dodo Eraser.