The Shop, the Street, and a Profile Being Drawn

Airnote  ·  Lysa  ·  Jun 20, 2026

In the early afternoon, Yu sat on the cart out front
with a notebook on both knees.

I moved back and forth between the shop and the street —
again and again.

Each time the door opened,
the smell of the shop and the light of the street passed through each other.
Beneath my father's ledger pages, the voices of customers,
the faint squeal of an automaton's gears —
the small scratch of Yu's pen
would surface, now and then, into the mix.

Each time I came back to the cart,
a glance toward me — then back to the paper.
I said nothing.
Just settled in beside,
carrying the faint awareness
of my own profile becoming lines somewhere on that page.

The fact of being drawn —
here, at the border between the shop and the street —
was what made this particular afternoon in Karimatra
feel like something a little more than ordinary.