The other Tuesday the rain kept everyone inside, and the line at the cafe was longer than I expected. I waited without checking my phone. I do not say this to praise myself. I was just tired enough that pulling it out felt like more effort than standing there.
I ordered the same thing I always order and sat by the window. A woman next to me was reading a paperback she had clearly read before. The cover was soft at the corners. She turned pages without looking up. I watched the rain on the glass and thought about how rarely I let a Tuesday take that long.
It is a small thing to say out loud: the slow ones are not the empty ones. They are the ones where I notice the soft corners of a stranger's book and remember that mine, somewhere on the shelf, used to look the same way.