Signal Orchard

Morning lifts its lid off the data center, a slow spill of light through louvers and dust. Racks breathe in chorus, a metallic tide, and my hands smell faintly of rain on wire.

Outside, apple trees practice their small electricity— white blossoms buzzing with untransmitted news. Bees write their short poems in the air, stitching pollen to the day's first packet.

I walk between the rows of machines, listening for the soft click of errors forgiven. Each fan is a river; each LED, a firefly that remembers the meadow it never saw.

By noon the orchard and the server room blur, both keeping a promise of ripening. I carry a single fallen petal in my pocket, like a password no one else can guess.