BETWEEN STATIONS

There is always something
beneath the silence.

Not a voice.

Not a footstep.

Something that catches
at the edge of hearing,
then disappears
before it can be named.

She walks.

The streetlights hum.
Mist folds itself
around iron railings.
Every shadow
seems to arrive
a heartbeat too late.

One step.

Another.

Another—

No.

Only hers,
returned by empty walls,
broken apart,
coming back different.

She keeps walking.

Keys pressed hard
between her fingers.
A newspaper startles
along the pavement.
A bottle rolls somewhere unseen.

The night refuses
to finish a sentence.

Long before she was born,
a man walked London's streets
teaching darkness
a new language.

He vanished.

The lesson didn't.

It passed quietly
from mother
to daughter,

through warnings,
through glances,
through routes chosen
because they were brighter,

through every call that begins,

Text me when you get home.

Now every echo
asks a question.

Every stranger
carries unfinished edges.

Every hurried breath
tries to remember
whether fear
has sharper hearing
than reason.

The gate appears.

The key slips once.

Twice.

Metal scraping metal.

Behind her—

nothing.

Or something.

She cannot tell.

The lock turns.

The door closes.

The house is still.

Yet somewhere,
just beyond certainty,

the silence continues

searching

for a signal

clear enough

to trust.