Your Unfinished Future

The last door closes behind you without hurry.

You leave here carrying a day that was never yours to keep, quietly owing more than you agreed to spend, and amended in a record you were never shown. You also go out declining something without ever raising your voice, already expected somewhere eleven years ahead, and released from an apology you had prepared. And you walk on advised in advance by someone who writes like you and with one Thursday already rearranged.

The Civic Time Expansion Era expects you back. It is still holding a day with your name on it and no year to put it in.

The Counterfactual Communications Boom keeps your line open. Somewhere a receiver is warm, and nobody in that kitchen has hung up.

The lights go down one room at a time, in the order you walked them.