But here is the thing about a half-second: it is still a second. Just halved. Like a sandwich given to a stranger who smiled. Like a raincloud that, tired of being heavy, decides to be a puddle a child jumps into.

So I jump. Bad knee and all. The splash is ridiculous. The joy is real, if only for the time it takes a drop to fall from my hair to the floor.

The paint is wet on the chair again. I sit in it. I have always sat in it.

Look — there is the crack in the mug I glued back twice. There is the sock that lost its partner in the dark. There is me, waving at a reflection that waves back a half-second too slow.