The change appears sometime between late afternoon and dusk.
I know the window without checking the time. I had left the cabin clean, exact, the way I always do when I intend to notice even the smallest deviation. That habit used to come from anxiety. Now it comes from discipline. When I step inside again, the air feels the same. The light is the same, angled low through the trees, dust drifting lazily in its path. Nothing is out of place in the way that triggers instinctive alarm.
And yet, something is different.
It takes me a moment to see it, which tells me everything I need to know.
If it had been obvious, it would have been a challenge. If it had been disruptive, it would have been a warning. This is neither. The object is small. Symbolic rather than practical. It does not block a
