Orbital Vigil

The room is already awake before thought gathers—cold window, frost webbing the panes, candles guttering low as the robed watcher lifts both hands and the galaxies answer. Light coils and clicks into place, spheres sliding along etched rings, heat blooming from wax, steam ghosting off the mug, chalk dust biting the floor where Where Vojta? still waits like a dare I refuse to erase. I keep guard here because motion attracts attention, and attention risks drift, and drift loses people. Books lean inward, bindings tense, chalk marks hurry arrows, candles shorten, pages breathe, metal rulers twitch, the orbits shiver, the room hums. This working was pulled together in haste at first light, when the cold presses hardest and the sky pretends innocence. I stand just beyond the circle’s reach, counting rotations, listening for a footstep that never commits. The search tightens, brightens, burns careful. Vojta does not answer yet; his absence keeps the system spinning.