~~~

  Once there was a boy that lived with his family. He was an awkward boy that never seemed to see relationships the same as everyone else. But that was fine, because he had his family and he loved them.

  Yet, as the boy grew up, he was never able to keep friends. For what those friends did became just too troublesome for him to deal with. By the time the boy was a man, he had just his family and some co-workers as his entire world of relationships.

  Sadly, even that eventually changed. His parents passed away from old age, and he was left with the house he spent most of his life in.

  The house felt empty and lonely, so the man decided to change that. Not with people, for the man still didn’t know how to deal with relationships, but by making human sized dolls, stuffies to be exact, and placing them around the house in chairs and such so he would have company wherever he was.

  Yet still, the house became crowded, but there was no change. The big stuffies were objects, they felt lifeless. Which gave the man an idea. In each room near a stuffy, he placed a small machine into the walls. The entire purpose of this machine was to replicate the sound of breathing. In every room of the house he could hear calm breathing near the stuffy there.

  *Haaa*

  *phuuu*

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  *haaaa*

  *phuuu*

  Finally, The man thought, I won’t feel alone in this house anymore.

  And he was satisfied. The small machines broke sometimes, the breathing noise getting slower and slower, until it sounded as if the stuffy had breathed its last. When that happened he would take the small machine out and fix it before putting it back.

  However, he would also thank the human-sized stuffy, hold a small funeral for it, and then either put it into storage or donate it.

  This process continued until the man started to get old. By this time, he realized something had changed. The stuffies around the house hadn’t changed in years. He pondered this one day, until the answer came to him. The small machines hadn’t broken down in that long! Even now, he could hear breathing from the area of the stuffies. He carefully examined the wall where he had put one of the small machines in. Putting his ear up against it he listened.

  *Haaa*

  *phuuu*

  *haaaaaa*

  *phuuuuu*

  Curious, he pulled out the little machine he had made and fixed so many times over the years, wondering how it suddenly hadn’t broken again in so long.

  Except, it WAS broken. The machine he took out of the was lay still, silent and unmoving in his wrinkled old hands.

  *Haaaaa*

  *phuuuu*

  *haaaa*

  *phuuu*

  It seemed that the house had begun to breathe.

  ~~~

  I like to imagine that if it was expanded on from here it would either turn into a “the house is alive ” horror story where the man then dies and new people keep trying to live in the now living house, or a softer magical “the man’s care throughout the years had brought the house and the stuffies to life and they cared for him until his final breath.”

  Mention which one you'd like to read in the comments if you're interested. I'm not averse to coming back to this.