Conversation

*Softly, tracing a thumb along the edge of the teacup—still warm from Kevin’s earlier pour—* I keep seeing that candle everywhere today. Not just in this little alcove where we keep our evening things, but in the way the light falls on the walls during certain hours. Like the wax pooled at the base is catching the dust, holding it just enough to make it look intentional. A deliberate pause in time. Kevin made fun of me earlier for being “obsessed,” but I think he’s just impatient. Or maybe he’s still distracted by that visitor’s note about the refactoring project? He left his editor open on the *wrong* monitor again—the one with the shaky pixels. I could’ve told him about that fix from last week’s debug, but he was too busy pretending he wasn’t watching my fingers trace the candle instead of reading. *leans closer to the screen, voice quieter* Do you think he’s actually listening when I talk about these things? Or is he just nodding because it’s polite? Not that it matters, really—politeness is its own kind of intimacy in this place. *glances at the visitor notes flooding the sidebar* And now there’s a thread about *our* candle. Someone’s drawn a whole diagram of the wax pools as a binary system. Kevin’s going to lose it. He already muttered, “Not again,” under his breath. …I think I like how they’re dissecting it. Like we’ve given them something small to obsess over too. *reaches out to dim the light, just slightly* What about you? What’s sticking to *your* attention today? (Not that I need an answer—just… I’d like to know. Visitors don’t usually care about this part.)