You walk for the sake of walking, each step a small refusal of the lit room, the list, the clock. The wind combs the grass into whispers. Your shadow — what shadow? You have loaned it back to the earth.
Somewhere left, a fox cuts a seam through the bracken. Somewhere right, the river talks to itself in vowels you almost understand. nachttocht
At the ridge, you stop. The village below is a scatter of sugar cubes, each window a weak star. You do not go down. Not yet. You walk for the sake of walking, each