I still had in mind the floating tear that had been before me.
It haunted me without hurting, like an image one does not forget because it touched something too deep to be named. It was neither sad nor beautiful. It was there, in me, suspended as it had been in the air — fragile, clear, unreal.
It had lasted only a moment. But that moment, that single heartbeat, was enough to make it exist forever in a corner of my memory.
I didn't know if it was the tear I was carrying, or what it represented. A farewell. A promise. A remnant of who I had been. But it still shone, somewhere, in my gaze, in my throat, in my silences.
And even if it no longer existed, even if it had dissolved into the air like the child before it… I still carried it. Like proof. Like mourning. Like one heartbeat less, but one step more.
Just enough time to exist.
