A Pocket Archive (35)

Every home has a heart.

For some, it's a table, where warm meals are shared. For others, it might be a fireplace where stories are exchanged, or perhaps a patio or an open garage door with lawn chairs and a mini fridge.

For us, it's a chainik.

Most of our mornings and evenings were spent at the kitchen counter, black leaves swirling behind curved glass while spoons clinked and the smell of tea and lemons hung in the air like fragrant anticipation, waiting for someone to spill. It had become our ritual, a strange spell that only we new, like an enchantment or love charm that could be invoked with boiled water and three magic words:

"Tell me everything."

We'd talk for hours, steeped in conversation until the words melted into quiet whispers, which coiled in the air like steam before eventually fading into kisses and soft sighs; a strange tasseography that ended with fingers laced and blankets tangled. The spell would end with our heartbeats falling into sync, all the darkness from the day or monsters past dissapating into nothing as we dissolved into sleep, fading into the warmth of our dreams.