What the Old Light Remembers

Some meetings only happen at the edge of things, the edge of water, the edge of day, the edge of what you're allowed to still believe in once you're grown. She reaches up without hesitation. It bows its head without asking why. Somewhere behind them, a flock is already leaving for the night, the way birds do when they sense something has been settled and there's nothing left to watch for.

The paper itself seems to know how rare this is, staining at the corners, fading at the edges, as if it's been carried in someone's pocket for forty years just to keep this one evening from disappearing entirely. Maybe that's all a memory ever is: ink that should have washed away by now, still holding its shape out of sheer stubbornness.