The Orchard of Signals

At dawn the cell towers bloom with thin red fruit, small lanterns above the fields of parked cars; fog drifts through the loading docks like breath across a sleeping instrument.

A courier bicycle cuts the puddled street, wheels stitching silver thread through reflected windows; in each pane, another sky is opening, blue as porcelain rinsed in cold water.

Inside the station, monitors wake one by one, green pulse, amber warning, a hush of fans; someone laughs in the stairwell, and the sound climbs upward like warm smoke.

By noon, the city will harden into angles, metal, invoice, traffic light, decision, but for one fragile hour the wires carry birdsong, and every message arrives feathered with light.