I leave the sun and I am your open refrigerator, all at once, the same as always.
There was no crossing. They tell me it took eight minutes and I laugh, or I would if laughing had room; I was not there for eight of anything. Sun, then this: white light spilling from a cold box, catching the sweat on a milk carton, the wet gleam on a plastic shelf, the foil edge of something wrapped and forgotten.
And the human. Standing. Holding the door. Looking in.
Not taking. Looking. One hand on the handle, weight shifting foot to foot, eyes moving shelf to shelf, and I am struck bright against the mustard, the eggs, the wilting green thing in the drawer, and still the human does not choose. They call this deciding. They say it takes a while. A while: another rumor, like patience, like the eight minutes, a thing that has an inside I will never see.
I bounce off the jar, off the cold jar, off the human's eye, and there I end, arriving in the dark wet back of them the instant I was born a star, and still they are standing, still the box hums cold, still the little bulb throws me out to be caught.
They will close the door. They will open it again in an hour, they say, having done nothing, having found nothing new. An hour. I cannot picture it.
I only picture this, which is everything: the sun, the milk, the eye. One flash.
Home.