Stillness has a price.
It just doesn't charge you all at once.
The morning arrived wrapped in softness—warm light, quiet greetings, chairs already set. The city had learned how to sit very well. People took their places without being asked, drifted into circles with practiced ease, spoke when prompted.
No one rushed.
No one pushed.
From the outside, it looked like healing.
From inside it felt like holding your breath for too long.
Arjun exhaled slowly beside me."Nothing's happening," he said.
"Yes," I replied."And something is being lost."
✦
The first cost showed up as absence.
The man who always stood near the transit stop—the one who carried extra water—wasn't there. Neither was the woman who used to redirect people quietly toward shade.
No announcement explained it.
They'd simply stopped coming.
Burnout, the facilitators would say.Rest, they would suggest.
The city accepted that explanation because it sounded kind.
✦
A facilitator opened the morning circle.
