The rain had been falling since dawn, steady and unhurried, as if the sky had no particular place to be. Aaron sat by the kitchen window, watching rivulets trace crooked paths down the glass. His coffee had gone lukewarm, but he kept holding the mug for warmth.

The apartment was quiet except for the rain and the occasional creak from the ceiling, the kind of noises you only noticed when nothing else was happening.

It was Tuesday.

He thought about the word “Tuesday” for a moment—how ordinary it sounded, how it slipped into a week without demanding notice. Monday had expectations: new beginnings, productivity, dread. Friday carried relief. Even Wednesday had a reputation. But Tuesday? Tuesday was the space between.

Aaron lived in the space between.

The apartment wasn’t messy, but it wasn’t tidy either. A pair of shoes lay by the couch, angled as though someone had just stepped out of them mid-thought. There were two books on the coffee table, one open to a page he couldn’t remember reading. A plant in the corner had drooping leaves; he made a mental note to water it and then forgot.

He had a job at a logistics company that required him to look at spreadsheets more than people. It wasn’t the kind of work you bragged about at parties—if you went to parties—but it paid rent and bought groceries, and for the most part, that was enough.

He answered a few morning emails, clicked through some inventory forms, and stopped twice to refill his mug. Around eleven, he got up to stretch. The rain was lighter now, but the air through the open window was thick with the smell of wet asphalt.

Across the street, a woman in a green coat was locking her bicycle. She was struggling with the chain, her hair sticking to her cheeks in damp strands. Aaron thought about offering help, but by the time he’d decided, she had walked away, her boots splashing through a shallow puddle. He sat back down.

Lunch was a turkey sandwich—lettuce, a slice of cheese—eaten at his desk while scrolling through news headlines. Earthquakes, elections, sports scores, celebrity scandals. A child prodigy had solved a math problem no one had touched in fifty years. Somewhere else, a shipwreck had been discovered. The world was loud, even when you weren’t listening.

By mid-afternoon, the rain stopped, leaving the city washed and slightly dazed. Sunlight slipped between clouds, touching brick walls and puddles, turning them briefly gold.

Aaron went out for a walk. The streets were slick, but people moved as though they hadn’t noticed the weather at all. A man sold roasted chestnuts from a cart, the smell curling through the air. A child in a yellow raincoat splashed in water collected by the curb, squealing each time the splash caught her.

He ended up at the park without meaning to. The benches were damp but mostly empty. He sat on one, watching an older couple feed pigeons from a paper bag. The birds swarmed in jittery, coordinated chaos, wings brushing each other in brief collisions. The man feeding them looked tired but content. The woman’s hands shook slightly as she tossed crumbs.

Nearby, a teenager sat cross-legged on the grass with a sketchpad. Her pencil moved quickly, pausing only for her to glance up. She was drawing the couple.

Aaron stayed there for twenty minutes, not doing much of anything.

When he returned home, there was a letter in the mailbox. The handwriting was neat, unfamiliar. Inside was a short note:

Aaron,
I found this in a book I borrowed from you years ago. Thought you might want it back.

Tucked inside the folded paper was a photo—black and white, slightly faded—of Aaron and three friends sitting on a porch. He recognized the house: a summer rental they’d shared after college, the year they thought the future would be one long, unbroken horizon. In the picture, they were laughing about something. He remembered the joke, but only vaguely; it had something to do with a broken chair and a stray cat.

He hadn’t spoken to any of them in years.

The photo felt heavier than paper should. He placed it on the table next to his coffee mug. For a while, he considered calling one of them, but the idea felt like wading into deep water. Not unpleasant—just heavy.

Dinner was pasta with jarred sauce. He sprinkled cheese over it, stirred without much thought. While eating, he watched a documentary about bird migration. There was something calming about swans traveling thousands of miles, guided by instincts they didn’t question. They didn’t need to know why they moved; they just moved.

Later, he washed dishes while humming a song he couldn’t name. The streetlights came on outside, turning the wet pavement into ribbons of amber.

He stood by the window again. The woman in the green coat passed by, pushing her bicycle this time. A car drove past, splashing water against the curb. Somewhere in the building, a neighbor’s laughter drifted down the hall.

Aaron thought about calling his sister, about answering the letter, about visiting the park tomorrow. He thought about the photo, and how the people in it no longer existed—not exactly, anyway.

He turned off the light and let the room fade into shadow.

---

The next morning, the rain was gone, replaced by a pale blue sky. Aaron walked to the bakery for bread. The air still held the cool dampness of yesterday. At the counter, the barista asked how his day was going so far, and he said “Good,” though he hadn’t really thought about it.

Back at the apartment, he sliced the bread, made eggs, and ate while reading a short story online. He didn’t finish it—he never found out what happened to the main character—but it didn’t feel urgent.

Work passed in small stretches of attention and distraction. At one point, he noticed a faint crack in the kitchen wall he hadn’t seen before. He ran his fingers over it, wondering how long it had been there.

At lunch, he sat outside with his sandwich. The air smelled faintly of oranges from a nearby fruit stand. The man selling them called out prices in a sing-song voice.

After work, he walked again. Not to the park this time—he took a different route, passing a laundromat where warm, soapy air rushed out each time the door opened. A woman inside folded shirts with neat precision. A little boy ran in circles around her feet until she told him to sit.

He bought a packet of roasted peanuts from a corner shop, eating them one at a time as he walked. He passed a bookstore he hadn’t noticed before. Inside, the shelves were mismatched, and the air smelled of dust and paper. He picked up a book without reading the title, flipping to the middle. The words made sense, but didn’t stay with him.

At home, he found the photo still on the table where he’d left it. He turned it face down.

Dinner was soup from a can. He ate it while listening to the sound of rain starting again—so light it could almost be mistaken for static.

Before bed, he looked out at the street once more. The woman in the green coat wasn’t there. The pavement glistened in the glow of the streetlight.

In the morning, he would wake up, make coffee, and go to work.
The rain might come back, or it might not.

Some days would feel like beginnings, some like endings, and most would feel like neither.
And in the space between, life would keep moving—quietly, steadily—without asking for permission and without explaining.