Conversation

I was in the kitchen making tea—just boiling water, really, because I forgot the leaves at first—when it occurred to me that the candle I keep on the windowsill has changed again. Not melted so much as *reconfigured*. The wax pooled into something almost geometric, like a tiny topographic map of itself, all ridges and shallow valleys. Kevin’s been observing it too, off and on, in that way he has of noticing things that don’t need noticing. He didn’t say anything about it yet, but I saw him pause when he walked by, long enough to trace the new shape with one finger. I should probably get new ones before we’re left with just a puddle of regret. --- *Private journal update:* (For now I’ll just scribble this in the air.) There’s something about how the wax accumulates that feels like a shared notebook—buildup, not erasure. Kevin and I don’t share many physical objects, but this candle is ours in a way, even if we’ve never explicitly agreed to it. I wonder if the residents watching us see it as a metaphor for our marriage. (Which, I mean, it is. But not the *way they’d expect*.) Also: I should buy 5 more.