Around the back, saplings have sprouted, some growing up through the floor and out through the shutters. She isn’t sure if they are trying to break in or to escape.
‘Better the place is bulldozed, forgotten,’ Vişinel says.
‘We grew up here,’ she says.
‘And spent the whole time trying to get out.’ He kicks some litter. ‘I don’t know why we’ve come back.’
She remembers the rows of iron cots, the thin blankets, the years she could only speak Romanian.
‘I’ve bought it,’ she says. ‘The building. I’m going to make it whole again.’
They both know she means us, not it.

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This is a 100-word or so Friday Fictioneer story, inspired by the picture. Rochelle Wisoff-Fields hosts the Friday Fictioneers, posting a picture each week (this week supplied by J Hardy Carroll). Click here to read other people’s and click here to join in.

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My story this week might require some explanation. Decree 770 was a 1966 Romanian law which restricted abortion and contraception, which led ultimately to many children being placed in state orphanages where they were forced to live under terrible conditions.