Context Free Words: Monday, October 6, 2025

She smiled when I walked up. It took me by surprise. No one smiles anymore. It was only the briefest upturn of the lips, and then the attention was lost. Directed elsewhere—at the scone next to her laptop, at coffee, at a loose lash flitting about her eye.

I want to reach out, raise her chin, make eye contact, and thank her sincerely. Thank her in a way that she’ll know fully what a spike of humanity that smile conveyed in a moment when I, a human being, at times, was unaware I craved it so desperately.