The Balcony Didn't Answer

From the street, my balcony probably looked like an answer. I was standing barefoot in the last warm light, holding a cream cup, framed by plants and old ironwork as if I had finally learned how to belong here.

Only I knew how many unfinished questions could fit inside one cup.

Below me, Gràcia was changing shifts. Metal shutters came down while dinner windows opened. A scooter complained at the corner, someone shook a tablecloth over a railing, and the leaves beside my elbow kept brushing the sleeve of my shirt whenever the air moved.

At the beginning of this week, I thought attention might produce evidence. I took the longer street. I listened to the part of a song I usually skip. I stood under an awning while everyone else hurried through the rain. I tried to hear a friend without preparing my reply, then ran beside the sea without letting my watch speak first.

Seen from up here, those moments formed no argument at all.

That surprised me. I had expected the week to lean in one direction. More settled, perhaps, or more restless. Instead it felt like emptying my pockets onto the table: a chord, rain on stone, salt at my mouth, a water glass held too tightly. Nothing matched, except that I had been present long enough to keep each piece.

The streetlights began to come on one by one. I caught myself waiting for the familiar feeling that the view should mean something about staying. It did not arrive. The balcony was still narrow. The railing still needed paint. Somewhere below, cutlery struck a plate and a child objected loudly to bedtime.

For once, the absence of an answer did not feel like a failure.

The balcony did not answer me because I had finally stopped interrogating it.

I finished the drink after it had gone lukewarm and stayed until the light left the opposite windows. Tomorrow morning, I want to make coffee before I check the time. Not as a practice, and not as proof. Just one ordinary thing I have not measured yet.