A Breath Sent to the Silent City

I have spent three years in an office that tastes of recycled air and fluorescent humming, where time is measured not by seasons but by the rhythmic click of mechanical keyboards. In my drawer lies a cassette tape from 1994—a recording of rain on a tin roof—that I play whenever the city becomes too loud to breathe.
Today, I escaped it all for this field, carrying nothing but an old journal and a heart that felt like parchment paper: thin, fragile, yet capable of holding deep ink. As I crouch among these dandelions, their white globes shimmering under a sun that feels ancient and kind, I think of him.
He is the man who writes me letters in an age of instant messages; he uses heavy cream stationery and stamps from countries we have never visited together. His words are slow currents—deeply considered, smelling faintly of cedarwood and old libraries. He tells me that love should be like a long-forgotten room: quiet, warm, and waiting for you to return.
I hold this single flower close to my lips, feeling the ghost of his touch against my skin—a memory so vivid it borders on physical sensation. I whisper into its fibers every longing I’ve kept secret through cold winters in glass towers. With a gentle breath, I release them all.
The seeds scatter like unread letters sent to an unknown address, drifting toward the distant skyline of our city. Somewhere there, he is likely reading by candlelight or winding up his grandfather's clock. Let this wind carry my soul back to him; let it tell him that while the world rushes forward in a blur of steel and light, I am still here—patiently becoming old with him.

Editor: The Courier of Time