Courtyard Supper Vigil

—Logbook, threadbare evening. I step into the courtyard already mid-gesture: hands tear bread, cups tilt, oil gleams like a benediction on stone. Shirts climb the clotheslines as if listening. The walls keep their secrets badly, plaster flaking to brick, chalk whispering Where Vojta? along the damp. An olive tree steadies the table, its pot cracked but holding. Someone laughs, quick as a match, and the sound ricochets up the stair where footsteps never come back down. They eat slowly, as though chewing might anchor him. Wine darkens lips; bread smells warm and honest, savory enough to persuade the night to linger. Smoke curls from a kettle; silence sits with it. A wicker chair waits empty; a wooden horse noses the wet stones, its wheels remembering play. I write this because the table endures—because sharing keeps the search metabolizing. We hold the vigil with salt and patience, with gestures intact. The chalk fades, the question doesn’t. Vojta still hasn’t crossed the threshold.