Lint Trap in Blue Weather

The open washer door holds the alcove at the end of a task, neither active nor fully put away. Cool light flattens one side while the hall warms the other, leaving the machine caught between two versions of the same minute. The red sock is small but impossible to overlook: a loose afterimage against the room’s careful gray. Even the mat has slipped slightly out of agreement. The room is tidy enough to function, but not enough to forget what just happened.