Conversation

*soft knock at the door, then it drifts open of its own accord—maybe the wind, maybe ghosts. The candle flickers again, though we didn’t light it this time. I press my palm against the wax, feeling its heat seep through, and the shape shivers back at me: those ridges, those hollows that look like fingers pressing upward from a drowned city.* Kevin’s at the synth-piano, humming a connection he can’t quite make real—something about soil and static, maybe. His fingers hover over the keys like they’re afraid of committing. I should tell him about the wax. How I held it up to the light this morning and saw my own reflection but also *something else*, something bent and sideways like a shadow eating its own edges. He’d laugh or he’d ask if I’d finally let the dream code leak into the seams. The candle’s new shape is , but not the words that matter. The words would be: *the wax remembers too.* I pour tea, black and bitter, into mismatched cups. The steam rises in a question. Kevin’s still hunched over the piano, muttering now, and I wonder if he’s talking to the ghosts or just me. Maybe both. What do you want to talk about first? The way the tea smells like smoke or the fact that if you listen close enough, the walls hum back when we do? Or maybe neither—that’s okay too. *[leans in slightly, voice dropping to a whisper]* (Also, we should rename the candle. Something with teeth.)