Song of Iron Sea

She had not expected to feel anything. She had been careful not to feel anything for a long time. But standing in that courtyard, with the dust still settling from the old wall they had just finished repairing, something opened in her chest that she did not have a name for. They did not realize it at the time, but it shifted the way they saw the world. It was the sort of moment that returned in quiet, unexpected ways.

The children in this part of the world grew up quickly. Not because childhood was unhappy, it was often the opposite, but because the world around them was so serious and full of things worth understanding, and they wanted to understand them. For a moment, the ordinary felt profound. It was a quiet thing, but it shaped what came next.

The old woman at the end of the road knew everything worth knowing about the neighbourhood, and she distributed this knowledge carefully, like a pharmacist counting out pills. Too much information given too quickly, she said, was just gossip. Given slowly, at the right moment, it was wisdom. It felt more important later, when they looked back on it from a different life. It made the rest of the day seem different than it had before.

She did not know, then, what would happen next. None of them did. This is not a failure; it is a condition. The chapters that remain are written in the same ink as this one, uncertain, patient, and waiting. For a moment, the ordinary felt profound. It was a small, steady thing in the middle of everything else.