The lights begin without warning.

One moment the wall is brick and age,
the next it is water—
moving, breathing, climbing upward.

The crowd reacts.

Mouths open.
Hands lift phones.
Faces tilt back.

I do not move.

Light does not surprise me.

It enters carefully,
as if it knows silence already lives here.

Colors slide across the building’s skin,
folding into each other,
breaking apart,
returning again.

I watch the way they hesitate
before becoming something else.

This is how my thoughts work too.

A shape appears.

A memory follows.

When I was a child,
before sound learned how to leave me,
I used to stare at ceiling fans for hours.

My mother would wave her hand in front of my face,
asking something.

I remember the movement,
not the words.

Motion was always clearer than sound.

The projection shifts.

A forest grows across stone.
Leaves forming where cracks used to be.

I feel it in my chest.

Not excitement.
Recognition.

Light has always been honest with me.
It never pretends to be something else.

I glance to my side.

Jonah is pointing at something,
laughing,
talking faster than anyone needs to.

Leah’s smile is softer now,
older,
like she’s watching more than the show.

Then—

Aviva.

She stands a little closer than before.
Not close enough to touch.
Close enough to notice.

Her face is turned toward the wall,
but her attention drifts.

I feel it before I see it.

That quiet awareness of being observed.

I do not look at her right away.

Looking feels heavy.

Instead, I let the light continue.

A figure appears in the projection—
a person standing alone,
outlined in gold.

The image flickers.

For a moment, the figure loses its edges.

I think of the first time words stopped obeying me.

I remember opening my mouth,
knowing exactly what I wanted to say,
and feeling my tongue betray me.

Sound did not leave all at once.

It thinned.

Like light stretched too far.

The figure on the wall dissolves,
then reforms.

Stronger.

I swallow.

I wonder if Aviva sees the same thing.

I finally turn my head.

She is looking at me now,
openly.

Not curious.

Not confused.

Just looking.

I drop my gaze again,
but not as quickly as before.

Something inside me steadies.

This show does not demand anything from me.

It does not ask me to respond.
To explain.
To perform.

It only asks me to watch.

And watching—

Watching has always been enough.

The light blooms one last time,
spilling upward like a quiet promise.

When it fades,
I am still standing.

Still here.

And for the first time that evening,
I do not feel like I am borrowing space.

I feel like I belong to it.

To be continued…

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