Surprise

We spend so much of our lives preparing. Bracing, really. We call it planning, but underneath it is the quiet, exhausting work of making sure nothing catches us off guard.

And then something does.

Not the dramatic kind. Not the kind that undoes you. The kind that arrives, like a message that says: ask the kitchen to stay closed. Your meal is ordered.

From another city. Your favourite. Already on its way.

That's the thing about surprise — the real kind. It doesn't announce itself. It has already done the thinking. It has already moved. By the time it reaches you, it has been held quietly in someone else's mind long enough to become an act.

We talk about love as presence. But sometimes it arrives as proof of the space you hold.

The kitchen stayed closed. The rest, I didn't see coming.