The past stops calling first.
That is how it begins.
Not with forgetting.
Not with forgiveness.
With silence.
At first, people keep checking for it.
They pause after making decisions, half-expecting the familiar pull of memory to tighten around their ankles. The instinct to justify. To explain. To defend themselves against what came before.
But the past does not answer.
It does not rise up to accuse or absolve.
It simply… stays where it is.
The Unplaced City feels the shift like a loosening knot.
Old grievances that once fueled debates lose their sharpness. Not because they are resolved, but because they are no longer needed to explain the present.
A woman who once lost her home to a Heaven-sanctioned reroute stands before a planning table and says quietly, “That happened.”
Th
