Rewind
It was a couple of weeks before Christmas, and the house smelled like vanilla candles, bubble wrap, and the faint, lemony tang of the floor cleaner Mom always used when she wanted the place to feel “fresh for company.” The faint sound of the washing machine hummed from the utility room, low and steady, almost like a heartbeat behind the walls. The air itself felt soft with dust and warmth and the anticipation that comes before a holiday when the house is halfway between chaos and comfort.
We’d been begging to decorate since October. After last year, when we barely did anything, Mom and Dad finally gave in. Not a full tree, though. Just lights and wreaths, and maybe a few reindeers and snowflakes on the window sill.
“Ginger would pull the whole tree down in two minutes,” Dad said, looping an extension cord through his hands. He was right. She was already circling near the boxes, sniffing out ornaments like a detective with too much energy.
That evening, the house was full of soft noise - laughter, the occasional frustrated sigh when a string of fairy lights refused to untangle, and the faint, nostalgic crackle of a lo-fi Christmas playlist coming from my phone. My sister had just come home for the holidays, and even though she was still half-jetlagged, she was sitting cross-legged on the floor beside me, untangling a ball of string lights with the defeated patience of someone trying to solve a puzzle missing half its pieces.
The warm smell of candles mixed with the crisp chill of air sneaking in through the half-open balcony door. Every box we opened felt like opening a tiny mystery. Some had spare wires, others had half-broken ornaments, old magazines, yellowing paper snowflakes, and cards from people none of us remembered. I could feel the fine grit of dust clinging to my hands as I dug through the boxes, the faint static of old tinsel catching against my sleeve.
Then, under a roll of wrapping paper and a tangle of silver string, I found something that didn’t belong. A small stack of photo albums, a few burned CDs, two USB pendrives, and an old Sony camcorder, its black strap curled tight like it had been waiting.
“Whoa,” I said, holding it up. “We still have this?”
Mom looked up from the box of lights and smiled faintly. The lines around her eyes softened, the kind of look people get when their mind takes a small step backward in time. “Your dad’s,” she said. “He used to film everything - birthdays, school plays, that time your sister tried to cut her own hair.”
My sister groaned immediately. “I was five.” “Exactly,” Mom said, perfectly calm. “Five and nearly bald for half a year.”
I laughed, turning the camcorder over in my hands. It felt heavier than I expected, the plastic smooth in some places and rough in others, like someone had handled it a lot. “Does it still work?” I asked.
“Probably not,” Mom said, “but if it does, you’ll see your dad behind every video, talking too loud and shaking the camera.” That made me smile without thinking. There was something oddly comforting about the idea of his voice still trapped somewhere inside the device, waiting.
I opened one of the photo albums. The first photo was a little grainy - Shanghai, 2007, maybe. My sister stood in front of the skyline in a bright yellow jacket, grinning with two missing teeth. Mom was beside her, hair tied back, squinting against the sunlight. In the reflection of a nearby window, you could just make out Dad’s silhouette, holding the camera.
“Oh, look at this,” Mom said, leaning closer until her shoulder brushed mine. “That’s when your dad insisted we go up that glass tower, even though I told him I hated heights.” My sister snorted, not looking up from the tangled lights. “You cried in the elevator.” “I did not,” Mom said, flipping her hair. “I was visibly tense. There’s a difference.” We laughed. For a second, it felt like the years folded in on themselves, like we were sitting inside that same moment again.
I turned the page. Singapore this time. My sister was feeding pigeons outside a temple, face scrunched halfway between laughter and panic. “Look at your face,” I said. “You look like you’re about to throw the food at them.” She groaned. “They flew too close! No one told me birds have eyes like that.” Mom chuckled. “You said you wanted to be brave, and then you screamed when one landed on your shoulder.”
I flipped to the next photo. Bali. The colors were softer here - sunlight soaked into everything. Mom sat near a koi pond, her reflection rippling across the surface, and I was in her lap, a chubby toddler with one shoe missing, hand stretched toward the fish.
“You dropped my phone in that pond,” Mom said. “Your dad had to fish it out with a net. He teased me for weeks after that.” “Wait,” I said, turning the photo sideways. “That’s the villa with the red walls, right?” She smiled. “Mm-hm. And that silly frog fountain that never stopped gurgling.” For a moment, I could almost hear it - that endless, watery chatter, sunlight flickering against the walls.
Then came Australia. Dad in a straw hat too big for his head, Mom trying not to laugh, my sister glaring at a melting ice cream cone. Me in a stroller, face sticky with sugar. “You wouldn’t eat anything that didn’t come with fries,” Mom said. “Even in Sydney.”
“Still true,” I said, grinning. Mom shook her head, the lights glinting off her glasses like tiny reflections of stars. Each picture felt like a doorway, and we kept walking through them, laughing and falling softly into another. We weren’t unpacking Christmas anymore. We were unpacking ourselves.
After a while, I picked up the CDs. Dad’s handwriting was neat, slightly slanted, the ink faded in places. Family Trip 2003. Christmas 2005. Chloe’s First Day of School. And two with no labels, the surface scratched just enough to look personal, like secrets someone didn’t mean to share.
“Do we even have anything that plays these?” I asked. Mom paused. “The old laptop in the study. The silver one, with the missing ‘O’ key.”
I went to get it. The fan whirred like it hadn’t been turned on in years, a tired sigh echoing from deep inside. When I slid the first CD in, the drive clicked softly, the blue light blinking like an eye waking up.
Static, then video. A hotel balcony. The ocean bright and loud behind it. Mom’s younger voice, laughing, sharp and clear. Dad’s laughter too, steady and deep. The camera tilted to catch me waddling after a yellow ball that bounced toward the railing.
Mom leaned in closer. “That’s Goa,” she said, voice soft. “You wouldn’t stop running into the waves. Your dad had to carry you back every time.” On screen, he did. Water splashed up to his knees as he scooped me up, both of us laughing.
We watched another clip. Christmas 2005. Our old house, still painted that dull cream color. My sister in a paper Santa hat, spinning in circles with a string of lights wrapped around her neck. Me, a tiny kid barely a year old, wobbling behind her, trying to keep up. Dad’s voice came through faintly: “Smile!” Mom turned, pretending to glare, before bursting into laughter anyway.
“He always said that,” she murmured. “‘Smile.’ Every single time.”
Next clip - my sister’s school play. She was on stage wearing a paper crown that kept sliding down. Dad’s laughter filled the background. “Oh no,” my sister said, groaning. Mom grinned. “You forgot half your lines, and your dad still said you were the best one there.”
Then came my preschool sports day - me running like my life depended on it. You could hear Dad cheering from behind the camera, promising ice cream if I won.
The screen flickered to another video - our old kitchen, evening light filtering in through the window. Something sizzling on the stove. The faint hum of a TV in another room. Dad’s voice, low, humming along to a song that didn’t make it into the recording.
Mom’s smile faded slightly. “He never missed a thing,” she said. “He’d always say, ‘If I don’t record it, it didn’t happen.’” The air in the room felt still for a moment, heavy in a way that wasn’t sad but almost reverent, like the house itself was listening.
Then I noticed one more disc sitting apart from the others. No printed label, just a word scratched faintly into the surface with something sharp: Later. The letters were uneven and pressed deep, as if whoever wrote it had done it in a hurry, or frustration.
It didn’t feel like much at the time, honestly. Just another old thing in a pile of old things. We’d already spent hours laughing at memories, peeling back the past one dusty layer at a time, so another disc didn’t seem special. I figured it was just one more forgotten recording Dad never got around to labeling - maybe another vacation, another birthday, another ordinary piece of our family’s noise. So I didn’t think twice. I set it down and kept sorting through the rest, letting it fade into the background like everything else we’d almost forgotten
That night, after everyone had gone to bed, the house was quiet in that strange, almost living way old houses get at night. I came downstairs for a glass of water. The fairy lights were still glowing faintly on the walls, soft amber dots pulsing against the glass. The air smelled faintly of pine and wax, the ghost of the day’s noise still caught in the corners.
The old laptop was still on the coffee table. Its screen looked dark, but not off - more like it was waiting. As I passed, I thought I saw the faintest blue shimmer from the CD drive. I told myself it was the reflection of the lights. Probably.
In the kitchen, the tap squeaked faintly as I turned it on. Water ran cold against the glass, and when I lifted it, I heard something behind me. Soft. Low. A single click.
I froze, glass halfway to my mouth. The laptop’s blue light blinked once. The drive hummed, quiet but deliberate. A sound like breathing. For a long moment, I just stood there, staring through the kitchen doorway at the faint glow spilling from the living room. The fairy lights flickered once, like they’d been disturbed.
Then, as suddenly as it started, the sound stopped. The house went still again. I waited another few seconds before setting the glass down, forcing myself to look away. When I finally turned off the lights and started upstairs, I glanced one last time toward the laptop.
Its lid was still half open. The faint blue glow of the screen spilled across the coffee table, trembling like a breath. For a moment, I thought I saw movement in it not clear, not solid, just a smear of shadow across the reflection. It was there, then gone, like someone had been standing behind me and stepped out of frame the second I looked. The screen flickered once, a slow, tired blink, and then sank into black. But even after it went dark, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the room hadn’t gone still. It hadn’t gone quiet either. It felt... aware. Like the air itself was holding its breath, waiting to hear what I’d do next.
