The true weight of a star is not its mass, but the depth of the silence it takes to hear its light arrive.

Time is the echo of a collision that hasn't happened yet, ringing out in both directions from the present moment.

The lock finally yields.
It was not a great crash,
but a soft, internal click.
The hallway now holds light
and the floorboards are dustless.
The path is just beginning.

The rain started as a drizzle, then immediately escalated to spite. She wrestled with the cheap clasp of her umbrella, brittle fingers slipping on the wet metal. It wouldn’t lock.

The young man beside her, hunched over his glowing screen, didn't look up. He just paused his scrolling, reached over, and with a swift, mechanical click, locked the latch tight.

He returned his attention to the phone. She held the secure handle, the canvas roof firm against the downpour. She did not say thank you. He did not ask for recognition.

Just a shared, dry space under the drumming rain. They waited.

Growth is the soundless commitment of the seed, the patient stretching that makes no headline, only substance.