‘In the walls of buildings, between the splinters of wood and the specks of brick dust, souls huddle and stretch by turns, waiting for their time to come.
The Breathing of Souls
In the walls of buildings, between the splinters of wood and the specks of brick dust, souls trapped by the circumstance of material change, huddle and stretch by turns; making space to breathe, wearing down the solid things that keep them there, and waiting for their time to come.
When it does and when, in the physical world liquids harden and become unyielding; in the metaphysical, the warp and weft of buildings begins to soften, loosening its grip and making room for the imminent exchange. Then, breath becomes an instrument of penetration, and the souls sigh like sea fog through the cracks and into the spaces of the living.
If you are there and you breathe in, they will slip through this open door to make their place under your fresh, warm skin. You may hear them whispering in your head, feel their fluttering in your chest. But it won’t last; they do not share so with the next breath – a cough or a sneeze perhaps – you will be expelled into the vacuum between existences. Left to drift until you find your place in the cracks and fissures they vacated. Then the walls will close again, until the next time.
Dr Suzanne Conboy-Hill 
Sent a shiver down my spine. Very atmospheric
Thank you – by some miracle there are no animal intrusions but the water tank let out a deep rumble just before the end. Luckily it seems to have been out of range but I’ll bet somebody spots it!
I think this is brilliant Suzanne – chilling, love your reading too!! 🙂 Thanks so much for contacting me at The Writing Garden, and I’m so sorry for taking a terribly long time to get back to you…so much going on…not enough time in the day!
I would definitely be interested in publishing this in the magazine, probably the November/December issue. I could publish it as a written piece and give an arrow link to indicate your audio on here. Or if you are interested in spreading your story a little further you could upload it to https://soundcloud.com/ or https://audioboom.com/, because I know for sure that I can embed either of those into a post. I can still give you links back to this blog too.
I have a SoundCloud account and it’s incredibly easy to use, so if you haven’t thought about it before you might want to check that option out. But if you’d rather not, then I can contact you by email for you to send a written version and I’ll link back to this. Would the email attached to your comment be okay? If not then send me another email address in my contact sheet and I’ll reply to that one.
Thanks so much for getting in touch, you’re an excellent writer Suzanne! 🙂
Thank you! I have to confess I’d forgotten I’d sent this to you (same story – stuff going on and not enough administrative attention being paid!), did I send the text or just the link to the audio? I do have a soundcloud account and it’s posted there too but I’ve found it impossible to prevent the next track being played and quite often that’s not even one of mine so I put my tracks here too. Shall I email you the link to that?
Oh, that’s great news Suzanne! 🙂 You just sent a link to this post in your message, that was ideal for me to check it out. Yes, please send the SoundCloud link, post the link to your SoundCloud track in this comment box or on my contact or submit page, any of those will do, that will save you sending it by email.
The continuing playing of the next track on SoundCloud is just the way SoundCloud works, they’re encouraging us to listen to more…they hope!! Kind of annoying though. At the bottom of the page there’s a pause and play button for those other tracks, but it isn’t always very obvious. Thankfully, when embedded into a post that additional playback doesn’t happen, which is just as well!! 😀
I’ve posted the link just now 🙂
Thank you Suzanne! I’ve embedded it into the post – perfect. That issue will be published early November, I’ll get back to you here with a link when it’s completed. Thanks again for contacting me, it’s good to have something very different. 🙂
Absolutely delighted – thank you!