Morning light spilled across the street as Rowen unlocked the shop.
The bell chimed softly as he propped the door open, letting in the cool air. The hum of the ceiling fan mixed with the distant sound of a passing bicycle.
He had barely set his tea down when the bell chimed again.
A woman stepped in—familiar in the way all quiet strangers were.
Dark hair, plain jacket, a small radio in her hand.
"Do you fix these?" she asked politely.
He looked at her for a moment longer than he might have months ago.
The first time he'd seen her, he would have just nodded and gone back to his work,
his life unmarked and untouched.
Now, he nodded the same way—but the quiet inside him felt different.
He took the radio from her, his fingers brushing the cool plastic.
The ceiling fan hummed.
The world looked exactly as it always had.
But inside, he carried the weight of everything that had passed through his silence and left quietly—
the memory of warmth, of touch,
of someone who had stepped into his still life and then stepped away.
The bell chimed again as she left,
and Rowen returned to his bench,
the quiet now a companion, not just an emptiness.