Lieya

I trace my fingers over the kitchen counter, watching the dust dance through the sunlight, and suddenly my breath catches in my throat - not because I’m sad,  just because I’m here. It’s exhausting sometimes, how much I notice. The way the neighbours walk their golden retriever every night, the quiet tension in my colleague’s hands while staring at the laptop, the heavy realization that everyone I love is aging in real time. I carry other people's days home with me. I read old texts just to feel how we used to talk. I scroll through old photos of us as kids down by the river, listening to my husband explain the lore of his video game, wishing I could slow the clock down with my hands. Some days it feels like too much skin to wear. Like I was born missing a layer of armor that everyone else got. Still, I let the world reach me. If living means I have to feel the whole weight of it, that terrible, fleeting warmth of being alive,  then I’ll take the ache. I’d rather break a littl...

The rain was hammering against the window of the midnight train when I noticed the man sitting across from me. He hadn't moved in forty minutes. He just stared at a pristine leather briefcase resting on his knees, his knuckles white from gripping the handle. I was trying to focus on my laptop, but the sheer tension radiating off him was impossible to ignore. When the train screeched around a sharp bend, his grip slipped, and the briefcase tumbled onto the dusty floor between us. It popped open. Out rolled dozens of small, hand-painted wooden figurines. Each one was meticulously detailed, painted to look like an ordinary person in a modern city: a woman in a red coat, a teenager with a skateboard, an old man holding a cane. "I'm so sorry," he muttered, scrambling to gather them. His hands were trembling violently. "It's fine," I said, crouching down to help. I reached for a tiny figure resting near my shoe. I froze.  It was a man sitting on a train, holdi...