By the time she got home, the message had already become something else. Not a message, exactly. A small dark bird she had carried in her pocket all afternoon.
She placed her keys on the table and listened to the apartment arrange itself around her. The refrigerator clicked. A car passed. Somewhere above her, water moved through a pipe.
She could have called. Instead, she made tea and watched the steam make a temporary room above the cup.
There are silences that are empty, and silences that are full of weather.
— end —