It came in quietly. They always do.
I'd been here all morning. Same patch of wall, same patient angle. Then this one arrived — strange, metallic, holding itself like it knew something I didn't. I waited. So did it. That's how these things start.
Then — the first move.
A small mechanism stirred. Almost nothing. The kind of thing only another fly would catch. I've watched a thousand visitors in this room, and trust me: the first twitch is the tell. Everything that happens next was already decided in that twitch.
The wings opened like a long-held secret.
Not all at once. Slowly. As if it knew I was up here — and decided to put on a show anyway. Membrane and metal, copper veins, an architecture older than every word for it. I've never seen wings quite like that. I've seen a lot of wings.
For a moment, the room held its breath.
Copper caught the light. Brass refused it. Every joint, every linkage, every impossible little hinge — all of it, awake. You would have walked right past this. You'd have been on your phone. I was not on my phone. I was here.
Something in the room changed.
Maybe the light. Maybe the angle. Maybe me. But the wall warmed, the shadows softened, and my visitor seemed older, somehow. Less machine. More memory. We were — and I'm only going to admit this once — sharing a moment.
And there it stayed.
Wings open. Watching me back. Twelve seconds. Whatever it came for, it had found. So had I. I'll be filing this dispatch as soon as you're done reading. Then back to the wall. There's always more to see.