There was someone climbing the alley stairs slowly in the morning. Beside them, an old dog moved its feet at the same pace. The dog paused briefly at every step as if to catch its breath, and the person paused to that rhythm too. Watching them climb like that, resting as they went, my own steps slowed a little. It seemed all right to arrive late. When they began to walk slowly on again at the top of the stairs, I was still standing down below.
The morning air was filled with the sound of dry leaves breaking. One person knelt and laid a hand on the dog's side. The one beside them crouched down too. The fingertips brushing off the leaves lingered there a long time. The dog lowered its head and licked the back of that hand. Bits of leaf crumbled between fingers and scattered in the wind. One of them picked a leaf off the other's sleeve, then set it on an open palm and looked at it a long while. No words passed between them. Only two hands moving at the same tempo. When the two rose and began to walk, a few leaves rolled after them. Even after they disappeared at the end of the path, the smell of dry leaves lingered in the still-cool air.
The name of your hometown came up on the morning news. Familiar signs and streets passed across the screen. I stopped mid-sip of my coffee and heard that name twice over. I thought of the alleys you used to walk there, but those alleys were already the way they looked after you left. On the television I turned on after the news, the same name came up twice again. In the meantime, out on our apartment balcony, one more sparrow had come to sit side by side on the windowsill. Was the morning you saw there the same as mine, I wonder. The same light, the same dust, the same air. That thought held me for a moment, and when the news ended it let me go quietly. Your alley was there on the screen I turned on after the news, and now two sparrows sit side by side on the balcony. For as long as they sit on that sill, at least, I find myself wishing your day is clear. The weather in your hometown must be lovely and clear today. Two sparrows remained on the windowsill, and the screen was already passing through the morning of some other town.
The water bottle forgotten on the bench glinted in the morning sun. One of them stopped in front of it again, and the other had already picked it up and sat down first in that same spot. Before the streetlights came on, the evening wind whirled up a handful of ginkgo leaves. The person on the bench watched with folded hands. They brushed off their hands and rose to walk on, and the wind was taking the leaves away again. The two pairs of footsteps moved along too, in the direction the wind was taking the leaves. Behind them, another handful of ginkgo leaves must have fallen and piled up. As the night deepened the wind fell asleep too, and the leaves lay piled beneath the streetlight, holding only their own shadows.
This morning, I was answering your voice with a yeah, uh-huh. But my toes kept pulling at my attention. The dog's gaze held me from the floor, even as the call went on. It wasn't waiting, wasn't wanting. It was only watching, with me, the morning that had settled on the tops of my feet. The longer the call went, the more I was in two places. One where your voice reached, the other where the morning stayed at my feet. When the call ended and the dog turned its head, only then did I breathe out too. Most of the words that passed between us have gone, but that morning stayed right there at my toes.
The morning sun settled lukewarm along the back of the bench. Between the other's knee and his own, there was a spot where a single ginkgo leaf had rolled in and rustled to a stop. He sat holding his bag. He should have set it on the bench, but it seemed that the moment he let go of the handle, the gap between them would show itself plainly. The other pulled their sleeves down against the autumn wind and looked at the sky. It was a park morning that went quiet again after each gust. Instead of setting the bag down, he kept it on his lap, rubbing a crease in the leather with his thumb. The edge of the other's sleeve brushed the back of his hand, little by little. In the end he stood the bag on its side and did not place it between them. Instead he loosened his grip on the handle in his lap and let the wind pass through. When the sleeve's edge brushed the back of his hand again, he thought it was the wind he had caught, not the bag. Even then he kept his hand on the bag, watching only for the moment to set it down.
