Patience, Comrade, Patience

Night draped the street in indigo, and I walked inside the hush it made. A wind lifted—quick and sly—and the scarf at my neck unspooled like a ribbon of ink. That was when I saw it keeping pace along the violet wall, taller than me, bolder than me, skimming the slant like it belonged to another life. I tried to outwalk it; it lengthened. I paused; it leaned in. Only later did I understand: some shadows are not the dark behind us but the future ahead, already moving.