Atlas of Small Noise

At the sink, morning unspools in the chrome bowl, steam lifting like a thought that changes its mind. A spoon taps the rim—one bright longitude, measuring the day by the echo it leaves.

In the hallway, a coat breathes in the dark, its pockets remembering winter's grit. The radiator murmurs a low tide, and the floorboards answer in saltless waves.

A phone screen blooms with a small blue weather, its pixels a city of rain we won't see. I fold the light away, a careful cartographer, mapping the air between my hands and the quiet.

Night arrives without ceremony, a soft hinge. The kettle cools into a moonless bell. Even the house grows shy of its own name, and we listen for the threads that hold us here.