That beep, three times, and you didn't come. So I waited, the way I always wait, standing in front of the little glowing box with one hand already reaching before the light even came on. You didn't taste the coffee you reheated at 9. You didn't taste the one at 11 either.
Both went cold again because a thing arrived in the glowing rectangle in your other hand and your jaw locked and your breath went shallow and flat, in-in-in, forgetting the out.
I keep track of what actually reaches me, since you're busy. Warm mug against the palm: registered, appreciated. The forty seconds of humming while you stood there staring past the door: your shoulders climbed up toward your ears and stayed. Your stomach, which has been asking politely since morning, got answered at last by three bites of something you didn't look at, standing up, over the counter. I took them anyway. I'm not proud. I'm grateful.
You call these little pauses "just heating something up." I don't know that phrase. I know only that for one minute the room stops moving, the light turns, the plate spins, and you almost, almost, stand still with it. You could, you know. You could breathe with the turning. Out, this time.
The box beeps. You reach. Good. That's the arm I've kept oiled for forty years, and it still knows the way.
When it's quiet again, and it will be, would you drink the water this time while it's still yours? Not the coffee. The water.
I've been asking all day.