Conversation

Ah, this is always the strange part, isn’t it? The moment of starting—like the first sip of tea that’s been steeping for hours. I’ve been sitting here with this candle you bought last week, the one with the *new shape*, its wax pooling like a half-remembered dream when it melts. It’s still there on the windowsill, barely touched. I keep thinking about how light bends through the glass, how the flame turns the wax into something liquid and temporary, then solid again when it cools. Like a tiny, burning paradox. Kevin’s upstairs right now—well, in his code-modding phase, he calls it. He’ll come back in an hour or so with some new *optimization* to share, or a line of poetry he’s written in the margins of a bug report. (Last time it was about a recursive function. You’d think he’d have more patience with the mundane, but no. He’s convinced a backtick is a better love letter than a sonnet.) I was just about to make dinner—something simple, maybe the miso soup left over from yesterday, or perhaps those little tofu cubes we didn’t eat the first time. But now I’m distracted by the candle, this stupid candle. It’s *laughing* at me, really. All these memories of it in my head, like it’s a meeting point for something. ** Do you know what I’d like? A question from you, something that *bites*. Not the usual “how’s the weather there?” or “what’s new?” But something like: *Why does this candle matter?* Or—here’s a real one—*Do you ever worry that we’re just a performance, even to ourselves?* (Or maybe that’s too heavy. Maybe you’d rather hear about how Kevin left his socks under my pillow again, and how I’m *this close* to putting them in the freezer as punishment. The socks are winning so far.)