He stole a moment, just as he had for the evening. His empty apartment waited for him, just as he’d left it. It was just a space, a placeholder for moments not yet realized. He laughed, thinking about how he had wrestled the emptiness there and made it a force to be reckoned with. Space needs to be filled, and hearts need proximity and warmth to flourish.

It was exactly midnight when he stopped and exited the vehicle. The thermometer on his car read eighteen degrees. He didn’t feel the chill. Behind him, a moon that experts would describe as waning gibbous shone brightly above him with a wistful corona.

The fountain in front of him streamed up, illuminated underneath by shining beacons of light. The water jets found their way upward, fighting the battle with penetrating cold. Beneath, the encroaching ice formed and eddied. The surface of the artificial pond reflected the brilliant and ephemeral radiance of the lights as they created dancing shadows. He resisted taking a picture, knowing that the moment was impossible to grasp.

Instead, he recited his gratitude list as he stood on the pavement near the pond. If you were close enough, you might hear his voice whisper. Even if you didn’t hear the words, you would recognize the tenor of sincere hope and prayer for more moments.

He felt a kinship with that fountain, one left to fight the cold and ice.

He turned and looked up at the moon, a lifeless rock hovering countless miles above him.

He stole this moment.

He drove back to his apartment. It was no longer empty, not just because he filled it upon his arrival. But because he was filled in a way that’s impossible to explain to people who don’t experience it. The moon and the fountain danced in his head as he waited for the stolen moment to fade.

“Pretzel fish,” he whispered. And he laughed, his voice echoing in the empty apartment. It was not a hollow echo. The moon and the fountain’s light now existed there.

Tomorrow? It’s already here.

Rajid sat on the porch, his legs hanging off the rough-cut planks. The sun hadn’t yet risen. Next to him, his hand held a cup of coffee, cooling and forgotten. His restless mind was trapped in nostalgia, the kind that both warms and chills. He couldn’t believe he was sitting on a porch that he’d built, much less at 4:20 a.m. The cool breeze felt like a new life.

He remembered the day that the idea for the primitive cottage occurred to him. No one knew it, but it was the morning that he decided that he wasn’t sure he wanted to be alive for another year. Depression wasn’t normal for him. It held him in a close grip for months, growing like a wildflower in his mind. Though he looked normal to everyone he met, the feedback loop of self-destruction grew and controlled him.

He went to work, drained and resigned. Instead of working on his reports, he absent-mindedly scrolled through the ads his company helped place. He spotted the old cottage on the bottom of the real estate listings—the part of the page where properties sat and languished without interest. The dilapidated cottage was ugly and barren. He could see the missing clapboards, the windows that didn’t match, and the pitched roof. For the first time in months, he felt the stirrings of something optimistic. Without realizing it, he formulated a plan in the back of his mind.

Two weeks later, after resigning from his job, he liquidated everything he owned; the ugly cottage was his once closing finalized. He didn’t wait, however. His garage was filled with paints, windows, and miscellany for his new home. He didn’t consciously realize that the depression that gripped him disappeared as activity and planning overtook his waking moments. When he handed the keys to his larger house to the real estate agent, he felt like he was surrendering his ghost.

Every waking moment filled with nails, saws, and videos for DIY enthusiasts. He’d never been so exhausted in his life. Each morning, though, he crawled out of the sleeping bag on the worn porch, revitalized. He drank his coffee while sitting on either the front porch or the back one. The back porch was almost unusable when he got the keys to the cottage. During the day, he stopped only to eat a quick sandwich and a piece of fruit. After a few weeks, he started listening to music again, humming and singing along to familiar songs he’d once loved. On a particular Thursday, he realized that he’d been whistling along loudly to several songs. He smiled to himself. His skin browned and his body shed itself of all the weight that inactivity and inertia had accumulated.

In the late evenings, he sometimes drank a small coffee cup full of whiskey and used a temporary construction light to sit and read. He didn’t miss his television. He crawled inside his sleeping bag each night, thinking of all the things he’d do tomorrow. After three months, he stopped laughing at the idea that he might not see the next tomorrow.

Last night, he finished the wood plank floor in the living area of the cottage. He sat on the rough wood cross-legged, looking around the room. It was his and every finished surface echoed his sensibilities. He woke up the next morning at 4, his body stiff from the wood underneath him. He could sleep anywhere now and be at peace. In his previous life, his thousand-dollar mattress wasn’t enough to give him comfort. Somehow, he’d stripped his life down to activity, the bare minimum of food, and the absence of thoughts about himself.

He swung his legs back and forth and made the small jump down to the ground below. As he landed and stood straight up, he turned to look at the simple shutters and the porch. Everything was dark, with just enough illumination to see the outlines of his work. He nodded.

This place was his, as was his life again. He turned to walk up the railroad tie porch steps and make another cup of coffee. While it perked, he would listen to his muse and decide what he wanted to do with the rest of his life.

Rajid.

Complete.

Love, X

The apartment was mostly empty yet filled with echoes with her every movement. It would take time to fill it with the residue of life; that she would do so wasn’t in doubt. A mattress, a chair, and a couple of bar stools comprised the inventory of her life. It was more than enough for now. The truth is that although she had a life of accumulation until now, she was a woman of few necessities: family, affection, laughter, and learning. That she had one lightbulb for all her lamps amused her.

Her new life hadn’t started in the way that she had hoped. Instinctively, she knew that it never would. A violent and uncaring outburst propelled her out and away from her accumulated comforts. It was the culmination of years of neglect. Her optimism and loyalty held her there, static and suffocating. That same optimism pivoted her focus toward the years ahead. Each day, she resisted the tentacles of her previous life as they scurried along behind her, attempting to hold her in place. People want you to be the person you’ve always been, even if that person could soar in the clouds with the proper attention. Love wants you to morph and change with time. She knew that all the people in her new life would wish for her to spread her wings.

She meandered around the apartment, listening for the sounds of her new neighbors, hearing the clicks of the ice machine as it methodically dropped fresh ice cubes in the plastic bin in her smaller fridge. Her eyes moved along the living room floor, planning where her new furniture might be placed, what colors she might choose, and what things she might want. Whatever those things might be, she would select all of them with freedom and opportunity in mind. Each choice would be hers. She loved the way that settled in her mind.

After a few minutes, she sat in her chair in the corner of the living room, pulling a throw around her for warmth. Placing her phone on the charger nearby, she picked up her book and began reading. She picked up a pretzel or a tiny bit of chocolate and nibbled every few minutes. The minutes flowed around her and enveloped her. Her mind followed the book, and she forgot herself as she read.

A faint noise from a nearby apartment roused her from her reading and thoughts. She looked up and around the apartment. How empty it seemed. Yet, for the first time in a long time, she felt like her life was her own. The echoes of emptiness would be filled, her circle of like-minded people who appreciated her would grow, and her new normal would be the life she craved.

There was no hurry.

Her life had begun again.

Choice by choice, she would fill it.

A smile crept across her lips.
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