imouto.quest
a small, sisterly atlas — kept on a windowsill at 4 a.m.
She forgets to eat the broccoli.
The lid never quite closes flat — there is always a corner of seaweed, a stray sesame seed, a note in pencil that says itadakimasu in a hand still learning its curves. I leave it by the door before the sun is up, and pretend I do not check, later, which compartment came back empty.
I always say I wasn't waiting long.
The forecast was wrong; the bell rang late. Under one clear dome there are two pairs of shoes — the big ones soaked through at the toe because the small ones got the dry half. The puddle holds the streetlight upside down, and neither of us hurries home.
The countryside undoes itself outside the glass — a field, a wire, a house with one lit window — and in the reflection, just barely, the shape of me holding the rail while you sleep against the seat. Two hours of nothing happening. The best two hours.