The light at Main and College lasts longer than memory. Cars idle in both directions, exhaust twisting upward in thin, white threads that vanish before they find the sun. The crossing signal flashes its white silhouette—a walking figure too sure of its own authority.
I wait on the corner with three others. A delivery van rattles as it downshifts, the driver tapping the steering wheel in time with a song I can’t hear. A woman in a red coat studies her reflection in the bakery window, adjusts her scarf, and keeps looking, as if the glass might eventually agree. Beside me, a boy on a scooter rocks back and forth on one wheel, measuring patience against boredom.
When the light changes, we all move as though rehearsed. Halfway across, the wind slips between buildings, dry and sharp from the north. The woman’s scarf lifts, the boy pushes harder, and a paper cup rolls ahead of us like a signal gone astray.
On the far curb, a city worker kneels beside the timing box. He mutters something about flow and sensors, then taps the casing with a wrench. The crosswalk sign blinks twice, undecided, before resuming its steady rhythm. Behind him, the hills above town glow faintly—sunlight striking old snow. For a moment everything pauses: engines, chatter, even the thin whistle from the tracks near the river. The light turns green again, pretending nothing happened.
By the time I reach the other side, the cycle has already begun again. The same pause, the same release, the same illusion that motion is progress. I pull out my notebook and write one line: patience is not surrender—it’s maintenance.