090/365 11/19/2025

The boy began waking early. Four, sometimes three in the morning. His excitement like a thing alive inside him so lively he didn’t need an alarm. He woke, sat straight up in bed and butt-scooted down to the footboard where his clothes sat folded neatly, their own kind of potential energy radiating from them. 

Clothes changed, shoes in hand, he padded downstairs and eased open the sliding glass door. Sat on the concrete to don his shoes and crept across the dewy lawn to the shed and his bike inside it. 

He knew all the tricks of silence. WD-40 on the shed door rails every morning kept it gliding smooth and soundless.