With the Door Left Open
The moment I opened the window, cold air brushed my forearm. My shoulders drew in. While I rubbed my arm with my hand, it occurred to me that the thing I'd long waited for didn't have to come today. The room was as quiet as that air. What I'd been holding on to, and what had been holding on to me, were both slowly settling. Outside, streetlights stretched far into the distance. Dawn wasn't over yet, but no one was passing beneath them. The wind blew in again and brushed my forearm.
There was a night a cat walked beneath the streetlight. Without meaning to, I held my breath. The cat never once looked back.
After the streetlight passed over the cat's back, only the light must have remained in that spot. Looking at that light, I rubbed my forearm again.
In the alley after the streetlights went out, I stepped on the petals fallen from the winter camellia in the pot by the gate. The ground was damp, and red water spread from every footprint.
The red stains spread from the winter camellia petals will all be gone before morning comes, and that water will seep into the soil and never be seen again. Only the feel of what was stepped on will remain, a memory suddenly on the sole of your foot.
Before the dawn light came in, water from a rain just ended had pooled in the empty flowerbed at the end of the alley. A cigarette butt someone had dropped lay soaked in it, quietly sunk.
Too short for a reply, but looking at that water, I too thought I'd like to leave it as it is until morning comes.