The 4:00 AM Coffee Skim

Dear Delyara, There is a thin, translucent skin that forms on top of a mug of black coffee if you leave it sitting on the security desk for more than twenty minutes. It catches the overhead fluorescent light, turning a dull, milky gray. Tonight, I stared at it instead of checking the monitors. It’s a tiny, silent indicator of time passing in a building where nothing else moves. You realize that while you are holding your breath waiting for the next hour to clear, the physical world is just quietly cooling down around you, layer by layer.