This episode is brought to you by AJ+
Kenopsia.
You can sense it when you move out of a house,
noticing just how empty a place can feel.
Walking through a school hallway in the evening,
or an unlit office on a weekend,
fairgrounds out of season.
It's usually bustling with life,
but now lies abandoned and quiet.
It's easy to forget that most of your memories happened in places that are still around,
the walls mostly unchanged,
with even some of the same people,
who carry on in your absence.
But the world you once knew,
and the people you still remember,
have long since moved on,
replaced by so many others who have passed through these doors.
You try to stick around long enough to catch up with the memories,
and finally linger in the life you spend so much time building up,
hoping the world will stick around to keep you company.
But eventually you'll pack up your things
and walk through the house one last time.
And not a day after you leave, it'll become someone else's new home,
a blank canvas they'll fill up with their own memories.
burying the life you built in a fresh coat of paint,
leaving nothing but echoes of what was once here.
Leaving the room not just empty but hyper-empty
with a total population in the negative
whose inhabitants are so conspicuously absent they glow like neon signs.
Maybe that's why we want to believe in ghosts.
Maybe it's just a fantasy.
A fantasy that our memories could be so powerful they'll leave a mark on the wall
that could mean something to someone else,
and can't just be painted over.
We just want to mark our time here,
to keep the rooms filled and the memories alive.
And if our houses are haunted,
it'll be because we're haunting them ourselves,
as if there was ever such a thing as unfinished business.