The body of the email was blank except for a single line of white text on a black background, which is impossible because my email client only does dark-on-light.
It was me, but older. More tired. A version of myself who had never stopped searching. He—I—wore a coat I didn't own and held a compass whose needle spun in perfect, useless circles. He looked up from the reflection and mouthed three words: You found it. Searching for- spiraling spirit in-
The spirit in the spiral wasn't a ghost. It was the part of me I'd locked away when I decided to be practical. The body of the email was blank except
The hyphens in the subject line started to make a strange kind of sense. They weren't pauses. They were paths . Trails leading inward. A version of myself who had never stopped searching