A Room With No Clock

He is still exactly as far along as that Tuesday left him. Same rasp low in his throat, clearing it half a second before he says "Hi." You know that half-second by heart now, could probably hum it if anyone asked, which they won't, because nobody else is listening for it the way you are.

You keep arriving at ages he never had to answer for. He never met the version of you that came after. The one who changed jobs twice, moved apartments without telling anyone, and learned, badly, how to make the dish he used to make on Sundays. Still can't get the seasoning right. Not once. Never close.

Somewhere past a birthday nobody circled, you became the older one in a room that used to have a clear order to it.

Not tragic, exactly. Just off. Like walking into a house where someone moved the furniture and never mentioned it.

You used to think grief meant someone standing still while you kept moving. Some mornings it feels closer to this. You're the one standing still, and it's the years that keep walking, right past a fixed point that used to walk beside you.

He said that sentence once, mid-errand probably, thinking about something else completely. And without either of you agreeing to it, that throwaway line became the last new thing he ever got to say to you first.

He'll say it exactly the same way next year: same rasp, same half-second.

You won't say anything the same way twice again. Most nights, that's the whole of it, right there.

Three rings. You press the dash before the greeting finishes, same as always. Or maybe not always. Maybe some night you'll let it run all the way to the beep. Not tonight, though.

The kitchen goes back to being quiet, the way it was before you dialed.

You stay another minute anyway. Thumb resting on the warm patch of glass. Watching his age sit there next to yours — one of them finished now, the other one still, quietly, counting.

But maybe it isn’t a malfunction. Maybe it is the only hour in the entire day that doesn't require you to be legible.

Every other hour does. Morning wants momentum. Afternoon asks for competence. From the first alarm to the last notification, you spend the daylight hours being a shape made entirely for other people. A quick reply. A calm voice. The version of yourself that makes sense to whoever is standing in front of you.

It costs something to hold that shape. More than we ever say out loud.

And then, somewhere past midnight, the requirement quietly lifts.

The calls stop. The requests stop. The person who performed patience and capability all day clocks out.

What is left is something you can’t quite introduce. You have been useful for so long that standing here, with nothing being asked of you, feels almost like being abandoned. Not by someone else. By yourself.

So you study the ceiling. Refill the glass for no reason.

These aren’t distractions from the dark. They are distractions from the strange freedom of it. From the fact that you don’t know what to do when no one needs your answer.

And then the thought arrives. The one that always waits in this room.

You were going to be someone else by now.

Not someone better, necessarily. Just further along. More patient. The kind of person who had finally made peace with the thing you’ve been circling for three years. Or five.

The plans were reasonable. You made them in daylight, when the gap between who you are and who you intend to be feels like a simple matter of time.

But here you are. The exact same person who stood in this kitchen last week. Carrying the same half-finished thoughts. Never arrived on the schedule you set. Keeps showing up instead.

There is something almost comic about this. Not the kind of funny that makes it hurt less. The kind that comes from hearing a very old, recurring joke. You already know the shape of it before the punchline lands.

The self that keeps arriving unchanged does not apologize. It doesn't negotiate with the timelines you set for it. It doesn't even seem aware of the plans you made on its behalf. It just sits down in the half-dark with the quiet confidence of something that has existed much longer than all your improving.

You can be frustrated by this. Most nights, a version of you is.

Or. You can look at it the way you sometimes look at an old photograph. Not the kind that makes you cringe. The other kind. The one where you almost whisper it out loud:

Oh. There you are.

Not with longing. Not with grief for what failed to develop. Just the quiet, level gaze of recognition. The way you recognize a friend after years—not because they look the same, but because something underneath all the changes is still completely, stubbornly, themselves.

There is a loyalty in that. A strange, unrequested loyalty in the self that refuses to finish the project of becoming what you planned.

After long enough sitting with it, something in you settles. Not a resolution. Something slower. Like putting down a very heavy, very old argument you had forgotten you were even carrying.

Outside, a single car moves down the empty street. Its headlights sweep across the kitchen wall—a thin stripe of light that appears, travels slowly, and is gone. You don’t know where they are going. You will never know. But you watch the light until it disappears, and for a moment the kitchen feels very large, and very still.

You set the glass on the counter.

A small ring of condensation stays on the stone.

In a few hours, the sky will bruise purple, then gray. The machinery of the day will start up again. You will step back into the noise and hold the shape, because that is what daylight asks.

But right now, the ring is on the stone.

You almost wipe it away.

The ring stays.

In a scarlet hush, a lone horse stands between past and promise, its shadow galloping through lantern light. The year turns; hooves write hope across the dust of doubt.

—

—

Featured Artist: @theeenourah | Curated by: @promptedbeauty