Page two, no pause

Your hand moved before you did. Clipboard, pen on a little chain, page two, a question about smoking. Half a second. No pause. No math about what counts. You'd forgotten it before you reached the door. Hours later it came back and landed somewhere deep. You ticked the true box and turned the page.

That square used to cost you something. The cigarette turned every form into a small confession, a flinch and a squint and a guess. This time nobody was watching. No friend to impress. Nothing riding on it. Your hand is a better witness than your feelings.

Feelings answer to mood, and mood answers to how you slept. You can argue all week about whether this change is real. Your hand skipped the whole debate. It reported from underneath, from the place where the question's already settled. Down there, the change is already done.

Keep that half second. On the day this all feels like an act, remember the pen on the little chain. You weren't performing on page two. There was no one to perform for. God was in that waiting room with you, the way He's there for every moment nobody else sees. Your hand knows who you are.