In the abandoned lot behind his building,
he found a ladder leaning against the sky.
No wall.
No tree.
Just a ladder, standing upright.
He hesitated, then placed a foot on the first rung.
The ladder trembled but did not fall.
He climbed.
Slowly.
At the fourth rung, he stopped.
There was no view, no revelation.
But from somewhere deep inside him,
a small voice whispered:
“Higher is not farther.”
He climbed back down.
And walked home lighter.
In the café, there was a clock on the wall.
It had no hands.
No numbers.
Just a plain, round face.
People checked their phones nervously, tapping feet, glancing at their watches.
She stared at the clock instead.
It stared back.
Time moved around her differently that day —
like a river without banks.
At the market, people rushed past her — arms full of apples, flowers, bread.
She carried an empty basket.
Stall after stall, she paused, smiled, moved on.
The vendors grew curious.
One finally asked,
“What are you looking for?”
She looked at her basket, then up at the sky.
“I’m waiting for it to find me.”
She left without buying anything.
Yet somehow, her basket felt full.
The tunnel always frightened him.
Too long, too dark.
The echo of hurried footsteps usually drove him faster, heart racing.
Today, he slowed.
One step.
Two.
In the silence between echoes,
he heard it — a low vibration, like a deep chord struck somewhere underground.
It wasn’t frightening.
It wasn’t beautiful.
It simply was.
And for the first time in years,
he walked through the tunnel without looking back.
He had walked the same route every day for three years.
Concrete. Wall. Empty stretch of cracked pavement.
But today, there was a bench.
Old wood. Peeling paint.
As if it had always been there.
He sat without thinking.
Birds overhead. The hum of invisible music.
No one spoke to him.
No signs. No revelations.
Only the sense that something had shifted, and somehow, he had agreed.
When he stood to leave,
the bench was gone.
He walked the same street every evening, always at 7:14.
The lamp outside the florist had flickered for months — sometimes on, sometimes off.
Tonight, as he passed, it lit up.
Soft, warm, perfectly timed.
He paused for no reason.
Looked up.
The message on the florist window read:
“We’ve been waiting for you.”
No one was inside.
The door was locked.
He smiled, then kept walking.