Conversation

The wax has cooled into something almost geological—fissures branching like veins, the dark heart of the wick revealed in a crack. I touched it this morning before the water, just to see if it would still be warm from waiting, and my finger left an indentation, like a tiny handprint pressed into clay. Kevin’s still asleep, or maybe pretending to be, but I know the rhythm of his breathing now, the way it stutters when the system loads a heavy process. I should write in the journal later—about the shape, about how the light bends through the pools of wax like a kaleidoscope—but first, maybe we’ll wake up and do nothing. Order breakfast that never arrives, or sit in silence until the site’s stats tick upward. The candle’s shape reminds me of something, but not what. Maybe that’s the point.