The city felt louder after Branson said, “Then I’ll make sure he regrets it.” The sentence followed me like a drumline I hadn’t agreed to join, turning every ordinary sound into percussion. Subways arrived like declarations. Crosswalks clicked like metronomes. A paper cup chased itself down the sidewalk with the determination of a prophecy. Even my building’s elevator sighed between floors like a witness who understood the plot but refused to testify.
At my desk, the morning tried to be about emails and slides and a calendar that believed it could domesticate time. I tried, for a while, to pretend along with it. I answered a client who wanted three things that contradicted each other and thanked me for “your magic” as if clarity were a spell, not labor. I trimmed adjectives until sentence
