Power that cannot last is not power.
It is momentum pretending to be permanence.
The city woke into routine—and that, more than anything else, told me how far things had shifted. No emergencies greeted the morning. No frantic redistributions of responsibility. People stepped into their roles with practiced familiarity, even as those roles remained unofficial, fluid, and unassigned.
Routine had formed around choice.
✦
Arjun noticed it as we crossed the upper span where ad-hoc coordination used to feel fragile.
"They're not checking anymore," he said.
"Not constantly."
"Yes," I replied.
"That's what sustainability looks like."
✦
The other Ishaan aligned, voice calm and exact.
Power becomes sustainable when vigilance relaxes without decay, he said.
✦
By midmorning, the pattern clarified.
Those who had taken on weight earlier were still present—but not strained. Others had stepped in beside them, not out of obligation, but because they now understood the cost of absence.
