17) Song - Those Who Knock Without Hands

[Intro – 0:45, The guitar plays a dissonant minor progression. Harmonium moans like wind through an abandoned chapel. A voice inhales, but does not speak.] [Verse 1] They came when the glass went black, When the streetlights choked on dust, When the last of the children stopped asking Who to follow, what to trust. No footsteps marked their arrival, No breath betrayed their shape, Just silhouettes on the threshold With patience thick as drape. [Verse 2] You could feel them in your jawbone, Like a migraine made of ash, Humming vowels you couldn’t pronounce And promises that rot too fast. They pressed their faces to windows Without leaving any mark, Only the frost of a question: Are you lonely in the dark? [Interlude – Bass Clarinet + Whisper Loop – 0:30] (Whispers repeat) “Let us in… let us in…” backwards and forwards simultaneously. [Chorus] They don’t speak— They remember. They don’t breathe— They borrow air. They don’t ask— They linger. At the edge Of every stare. [Verse 3] The first fool to open a doorway Didn’t scream when he was gone, Just left a coat on the chair back And a lamp still flickering on. They said maybe he walked to the crater, Or maybe he walked through the hum, But the house sighed once in relief Like a throat that had come undone. [Verse 4] Some claim they were always among us, Just waiting for night to agree, That the fall of the sky was permission For them to step out of memory. They don’t scratch like wolves on the siding, They don’t bleed like men in the cold— They just lean into cracks in the daylight Until the boundary folds. [Chorus (Layered, Droning)] They don’t speak— They return. They don’t breathe— They taste the room. They don’t ask— They wait. And patience Is their womb. [Outro – 1:10, A low harmonium swell blurs into reversed guitar notes. A childlike voice murmurs close to the mic:] “One day you’ll answer the knock. Even silence opens doors.”