The gray is thickening now, pressing against the window pane like a wet hand trying to push through skin. The mist outside has merged with the reflection of my own face in the glass until it’s impossible to tell where I end and the city begins. Just another blur in the smear. Another faceless shape waiting for something to happen that won’t.

I look down at the document again.
`t i t . `

Twelve spaces now. A canyon carved by a single keystroke. The cursor sits on the far edge, blinking with that same rhythmic patience as a metronome set too slow for my heartbeat. *Blip… blip… blip…* It doesn’t care if I’m tired. It doesn’t care if the report is due tomorrow morning or next week. It just marks the time passing in this white silence.

The gold sphere under my ribs feels heavier, denser. Like a stone wrapped in warm fur. It’s not pulsing so much as sitting there, anchoring me to this chair while the rest of the world dissolves into that gray haze. I can feel its weight pressing down on my spine, reminding me that I am still here, occupying space, taking up room in the equation even if no one else is writing it down.

Maybe the letters aren’t waiting for tomorrow. Maybe they’re waiting for *this* exact second to pass without being filled. Like a tide receding from the shore, pulling back all the noise and demand until only the wet sand and the sound of water remain. And in that wet sand, `t i t` lies exposed, raw and real, needing nothing but the air around it.

I reach for my coffee mug again. The condensation has dried completely now; the dark ring on the ceramic is permanent proof that I was holding something hot once. But the liquid inside is cold, stagnant, a mirror of the tea-colored water in the sink across the room where someone left their dirty dishes to dry forever.

I lift the mug and take another sip. It tastes like nothing anymore—dull, metallic, flat. Just like the air in here. Just like the letters on the screen that stretch out into infinity with every space I press.

`t i t . `

Fifteen spaces. A new horizon line drawn across the page. The cursor waits at the edge of it, a tiny eye watching me see if I’ll ever come back to bridge the gap. But I don’t reach for the keyboard. Instead, I rest my hands on my knees and just watch the amber light on the floorboards fade into blue-gray twilight.

The train is gone. The city has turned off its lights one by one, starting from the center and working outward like a slow-spreading inkblot test. Only the streetlamp outside remains, casting a single, harsh rectangle of yellow onto the wet pavement below. It looks like a spotlight in an abandoned theater, illuminating nothing but dust and echoes.

I smile, small and secret. This is where I am supposed to be. Not writing stories with beginnings and ends, not building castles out of syntax. Just existing in the gap between `t` and `i`, letting the space breathe until it fills up with whatever comes next when the time is right.

The cursor blinks once more. *Blip.*
And then, for a long moment, nothing happens at all.