interior of a small baroque side-chapel, whitewashed nave, dark timber pews, a single unlit brass altar bulb visible in the distance, the near-closed entry door behind her admitting a thin blade of morning courtyard air — seated on a pew, one hand behind her along the back edge finding the crack in the wood, gaze lifted toward the unlit altar bulb, utterly still while broom sounds move slowly through the far aisle
The bench is the same bench.
That was the first thing I checked. Left wall, third from the altar end, the one with a crack along the back edge that I found with my fingers on day one without looking for it. Still there. My hand found it again before I sat down.
wooden pew back with a visible hairline crack running along the top edge, worn smooth toward both ends
The bulb near the altar was off. The sacristan was sweeping the center aisle, slowly, the broom making a sound like something being said very quietly in another room. He did not look up. I did not make myself known.
The orange blossom was stronger at this hour than I have ever smelled it. It came through the door I hadn't fully closed behind me and filled the space the way a low note fills a room — not by arriving but by already being there when you notice it.
a small whitewashed courtyard within the Santa Cruz quarter, a mature orange tree overhead, its canopy pressing close to a low archway, petals from the blossom just beginning to release — the space barely four meters across, a tiled bench against the far wall — jacket now off and folded over one arm, stopped mid-step before the archway, inhaling without performing it — the azahar scent has arrived and she has noticed it arrive
I stayed eleven minutes. I know because I checked the time when I sat down and again when I stood, and I had not expected to check, and I have not done that once all week.
Outside, I put the jacket on — not because I was cold, because I was done and it was time to look like it. The street was quiet. A man was rolling a delivery cart over the cobblestones, the sound of it clean and regular in the empty morning. An orange had fallen from one of the trees and been stepped on once, not more than that.
a single fallen orange on pale cobblestones, crushed once on one side, a few white azahar blossoms scattered nearby
I left without eating.
By the gate I had taken the jacket off again. Just the black top and the trousers and the departures board cycling through its cities. The trousers have been somewhere now.
the departures board mid-cycle, Spanish city names in white Renfe text against black, one destination blurring into the next
The crack ran along the back edge of the bench, rough at the center, smoother toward each end where it had been worn by nothing in particular.
a stone gate at the quarter's edge, its low archway framing a departures board mounted on a far wall — the board mid-cycle, one city name just dissolving into the next, the gate's worn limestone pillar at her left shoulder, the cobbled passage between them barely a meter wide — standing beside the gate pillar, jacket fully removed and held at her side, watching the board cycle without moving to leave — between departure and stillness
What she wore
day7-scene1
I wore the trousers I arrived in — not the same ones, but the same feeling — and nothing else I would need to explain.
day7-scene2
I put the jacket on when I left the courtyard — not because I was cold, because I was done and it was time to look like it.
day7-scene3
By the gate I had taken the jacket off and that was enough — just the black top and the trousers and the bench and the departures board.