Reading Aloud

Car passing on the street below

They walked down the street in the late afternoon. The sun was going down and the shadows were long across the pavement. She held his arm.
It was August and the heat had settled into everything. The air was thick and still.

He saw it on the driveway. A penny. He bent and picked it up without thinking. His hands still moved that way—toward money on the ground, any amount, automatic as breathing.

2026

A feeling, 2026