The Warm Start
A small room flooded with warm light from no visible source. The walls are bare plaster, freshly painted. It smells like the moment after rain. A wooden workbench runs along one wall, and on it: a notebook open to a blank page, a pen, and a mug of something warm. The mug is always warm. The notebook is always blank. Not because no one writes in it — because every visitor gets a fresh page. On the wall above the bench, a framed card reads: You lost power. You are reading this. Therefore: the files survived, the services restarted, someone said hello. Below it, in a different hand: Pull, not push. You are here because you reached for this room, not because it was handed to you. A window looks out onto the Town Square. The lampposts are still unlit. From this angle, they look like they are waiting patiently rather than standing empty.