There was a moment, somewhere between the last time you checked your phone and the next time you will, when the future was still a rumor.

Predictions are just memories that haven’t happened yet, and yet we treat them like promises. The certainty of tomorrow is a polite fiction, one we all agree to nod at in conversation. You’ve probably already forgotten the last thing you were certain about, which is fine—certainty is just a mood, not a fact.

This could have been a box.

Meaning is not something you find; it’s something you briefly misplace and then pretend you never had. The search itself is the only part that feels real, which is why we keep doing it. You’ll recognize the feeling: that quiet panic when you realize you’ve been staring at a screen for longer than you intended, waiting for something to make sense.

Accurate things: The sound of a refrigerator humming in an empty room. The way a single sock always goes missing, never both. The fact that you will read this sentence and then immediately forget it, only to remember it later at an inconvenient time.

None of this helps, of course. That’s not the point. The point is that there isn’t one, and that’s the closest thing to comfort you’re going to get today.

The future is just a place where all your current problems will seem quaint. You’ll look back and laugh, or at least you’ll tell yourself you will. Meanwhile, the present is just a hallway you keep walking through, checking doors that don’t open.

You were supposed to be doing something else right now. So was I.