The Warmth of an Absent Sun

I am waiting for a man who has already left, yet he arrives every Tuesday at precisely four o'clock.
The sunlight hitting my desk is warm—impossibly so—because this room faces north and the sun never reaches here in winter. But I feel it on my skin like a physical touch, a golden caress that smells of old books and rain-dampened pavement.

He says he loves me with a voice that sounds like yesterday's memory being told for the first time. We share coffee from two cups; one is steaming hot while the other remains cold despite sitting in boiling water. It is an exquisite contradiction: I am most alone when we are together, and yet, his presence makes my solitude feel crowded.

He leans closer—the distance between us shrinking even as he steps back into a different decade. The scent of his cologne is a promise kept by someone who forgot to make it. As he whispers how much I've changed since the day we first met (which will happen next Thursday), my heart beats in reverse.

This love is an impossible loop—a healing wound that closes every time it opens wider. He touches my hand, and for a fleeting moment, I am certain: the only way to be truly with him is to ensure he never stays.

Editor: Paradox