The Day Nothing Happened

The Day Nothing Happened

On the day nothing happened, I woke up before the alarm and watched the light crawl across the ceiling. It moved slowly, like it had nowhere else to be. I lay there longer than necessary, listening to the house breathe. Pipes clicked. A car passed. Somewhere, someone laughed, then stopped.

I made tea and forgot to drink it. I stood at the window and watched people leave for lives that were not mine. They walked with purpose, coats half-fastened, phones already glowing in their hands. I wondered if they felt the weight of the day before it began, or if that came later.

The morning passed without announcement. No messages arrived that changed anything. No news broke. The world did not tilt or crack. I folded laundry I did not need and answered emails that would be forgotten by evening. At lunch, I ate standing up, because sitting felt like committing to something.

In the afternoon, a child dropped a red balloon outside the café. It rolled once, twice, then lifted, slow and uncertain. The child did not cry. He simply watched it go, as if learning something quietly important. I watched too, longer than was reasonable.

On the way home, I took a street I usually avoided. The houses were smaller there, closer together, their windows bright with ordinary lives. Someone was cooking onions. A radio played a song I once loved and then stopped loving without realising when.

At home, I sat on the edge of the bed and removed my shoes. My phone buzzed once. It was nothing urgent. It never is. I placed it face down anyway, just to see what silence felt like.

That evening, the sky turned the colour of old photographs. I stood outside until the air cooled and the streetlights flickered awake, one by one, like reluctant thoughts. I realised I had survived the day without incident. No triumphs. No disasters. Just breathing in and out, unnoticed. And in that quiet, unremarkable space, something loosened.

I understood then that not every day is meant to be remembered. Some exist only to hold us in place, to prove we are still here, even when nothing happens at all.