The pot beside the water tank

THE STORY BEHIND THE SOUND

An apparently empty pot has stood beside the rooftop water tank for several weeks. Whenever you come upstairs to collect laundry, you wonder whether someone forgot it while moving away. Tonight the wind pushes a piece of paper against its side. Bending to retrieve it, you notice a short wooden stick in the soil, marked with a date in very small handwriting.

Gentle percussion remains a little apart from the street sounds below, while chords gradually connect the space between them. You crouch and look until a doubtful point of green becomes visible among the soil grains. A neighbor arrives carrying a watering can and asks whether the second leaf has appeared yet.

The pot contains seeds planted with their daughter. She wanted to inspect them every day, but they agreed to wait several days at a time, giving waiting a place in the project too. When you admit you had assumed the pot was empty, the neighbor smiles and asks you to pour a little water around its edge. The green point does not suddenly grow, but you now know where to look.

Before going downstairs, you promise to check the marker for wind damage whenever you collect the laundry. When the seedlings are ready to separate, the neighbor says, one can be yours. The roof is unchanged, yet the corner beside the tank has become a place you will willingly approach again. Sometimes an empty-looking space has simply not had a chance to introduce what is already happening inside it.