it begins with a drip
a coffee maker sighs in a kitchen touched by early light. steam rises, slow and loose, curling until it disappears into the ceiling’s quiet breath. the floor is cool beneath bare feet. a radio hums an old tune that stirs something soft and unnameable
he stirs the cup. galaxies fold into silence. outside, the world opens: engines wake, sparrows argue, a neighbor’s hose draws a small rainbow in the air. every sound arrives at once, clear and honest, as if the air were listening
he steps onto the porch. the sun sits low and patient. time holds still for a moment, then forgets what it was doing. steam lifts from his mug, turns to gold, then nothing
thoughts come, errands, messages, the tiny noise of tomorrow, but they touch the water’s surface and are gone. what stays is coffee. cedar. a pulse steady as the world turning
he feels it all at once, the porch beneath him, the light spilling through leaves, the green trembling of morning. then the edges fall away. there’s only this
somewhere the kettle clicks, a small punctuation at the end of heat. the sound moves through everything, through him, until it belongs nowhere in particular
in that quiet, something opens. nothing declares itself. everything simply is
he breathes in
he breathes out
the story keeps breathing with him