Feb 14, 4267 A.D.

There's a memory I have from when I came home from work with my hair disheveled and caught up in my scarf; mascara rimmed under the bags of my eyes and cracked lips from talking on the phone all day. My upright composure disintegrated under the barrier of my door frame and the bags collapsed off me like armor at the end of the battle. The two totes on my right shoulder were responsible for carrying my work shoes while my ludicrously capacious blue bag slipped off my left. I hadn't yet noticed the dim light of the room or how the tornado that peeled the paint off the walls this morning had been reversed by time. I fight off my jacket and tie up my hair before slowly moving carefully to the center of the apartment, towards the dining room table.

What a beautiful surprise,

and you call me from the other room,

and you are always in the other room.

The wind of you passing me by is a moment I can't escape. I sense past and into the quantum physics in this room. Science is too cold of an explanation for what that breeze shocked in me but nothing more than an equation could lead me to this conclusion: I’ve felt this breeze of you walking by 30 seconds ago, 15 seconds ago, 7.5 seconds ago, 3.75 seconds ago, now, right now, you will walk past in T-PLUS 3.75 seconds, 7.5 seconds, 15 seconds, 30 seconds, in the future farther. Spiral in, spiral out, not gold as much as deep silver. Did you even speak? Where does this reverb come from?

You only don't exist if I’m facing you. As I stand as though my back was to you, you stretch and bend over every iteration infinite times over in between.

and you are making coffee

and you are making the bed

and you are sweeping under the table

and you are stacking up the plates

and you are moving

and the edges of my periphery

and you are there

and you are there

and you are real.

And I am turning the knob, and dropping my bags, and calling for you still.

Just like I did 30 seconds ago, 15 seconds ago, 7.5 seconds ago, 3.75 seconds ago, now, in 3.75 seconds, 7.5 seconds, 15 seconds, 30 seconds, in the future farther.