Searching For- Spiraling Spirit In- -

It was me, but older. More tired. A version of myself who had never stopped searching. He—I—wore a coat I didn't own and held a compass whose needle spun in perfect, useless circles. He looked up from the reflection and mouthed three words: You found it.

The hyphens in the subject line started to make a strange kind of sense. They weren't pauses. They were paths . Trails leading inward. Searching for- spiraling spirit in-

The body of the email was blank except for a single line of white text on a black background, which is impossible because my email client only does dark-on-light. It was me, but older

I reached into the spiral. My fingers didn't get wet. They passed through the surface like smoke and touched something warm and frantic—a pulse, not of blood, but of memory . Every forgotten dream. Every abandoned hobby. Every late-night thought I'd talked myself out of pursuing. They were all still here, swimming in the tight coil of the river's bend, waiting to be reclaimed. He—I—wore a coat I didn't own and held

I pulled my hand back. The reflection smiled. The water went still. The email was back on my phone when I checked it, but the subject line had changed: