QHO-0001: The Object He Left Behind on Purpose

A tortoiseshell comb, warm to the touch. Found in the third drawer, left slightly ajar. The kind of thing you forget , unless you meant not to.

It was always the third drawer. The others held socks, undershirts, and a careful stack of letters he claimed not to reread. But the third was for things that didn’t quite belong anywhere else: a silver cufflink without a mate, receipts from a show they saw together in 1963, and the comb.

Tortoiseshell. Curved like his smile when he used it in the mirror, smoothing down the part in his hair with a precision that made you want to reach out and ruin it.

He never needed it, not really. His hair did what it was told. But he liked the ritual.

When he left (quietly, like someone backing out of a room mid-conversation) it was the only thing that remained. No shirts, no shoes, no notes. Just the comb, resting against the velvet lining as if waiting for the hand that used to know how to hold it.

Maybe he forgot it. Maybe he meant to. Maybe it was the only way he knew how to say:

I was here.

I touched this place.

I touched you.