The Last Morning
Emma’s eyelids flutter open to the soft glow filtering through the sheer curtains, the morning light spilling like liquid gold across the hardwood floor. The apartment, usually alive with the clatter of her brushes and the quiet hum of her music, now feels fragile, suspended in a delicate pause. The familiar scent of worn paper mingles with the faint aroma of brewing coffee drifting up from the street below. Outside, the city stirs—an orchestra of distant sirens, muffled footsteps, and the occasional bark of a dog weaving through the early hour.
She lies still, the weight of impending change pressing gently but insistently against her ribcage. Tomorrow, she reminds herself, though the word tastes strange, like a foreign language she’s only just begun to understand. Just days remain before the suitcase will be zipped shut, before the sunrises she knows so well will belong to someone else.
Reaching over to the bedside table, Emma’s fingers brush against the cool, smooth leather of her sketchbook. It’s worn at the edges, pages curling like the leaves of a well-loved novel. She flips it open, revealing a mosaic of the city’s soul captured in graphite and ink—cracks in the sidewalk,…
