# Leaving I pack my life into a small bag— a few clothes, some photographs, the address of a friend I've never called. The door closes behind me with the kind of softness that doesn't hurt. Outside, the street is exactly as I left it: same corner shop, same stray dog, same old woman selling flowers from the same spot on the pavement. But something has shifted. The sky looks different today— wider, perhaps, or emptier. I can't decide which. I walk without a destination, my feet knowing the way even though I've never been there. This is how leaving works: you don't choose the path, the path chooses you. At the station, I buy a ticket to somewhere I can't pronounce. The man behind the counter doesn't ask where I'm going. He already knows: everyone here is going somewhere. The train arrives like a sigh— long, inevitable, familiar. I find my seat by the window. The city slides away behind me, and I watch it disappear the way you watch a dream fade upon waking. There is no regret in this. There is only the strange relief of finally becoming what I was always meant to be: a person in motion, a shadow passing through, a story that hasn't ended yet.