The Threshold

The bulb goes dark in one blink— not slowly, the way we expected, but sudden as a held breath released.

Darkness doesn't arrive. It was already here, patient in the corners, waiting for permission. Now it pours in through the vacancy.

We stood in the afterglow for months, believing light could stretch, could bend, could stay if we just held very still.

But the switch knows better than our wanting. The room remembers what it was before the brightness came to teach it names.