Priceless

The future is a mirror you cannot look into without consequences.

— Milorad Pavić

Some things have no price. Not because they were never valued, but because they can’t be. They slip out of the system of measurement, fall through the ledgers of daily life. They live in breath, between footsteps, in a fold of morning light on the wall at 7:06 AM. Like morning tea. It’s still warm, but you’re already awake. The room fills with gentle steam that smells of thyme, and somewhere inside that fog, peace has hidden itself. Invisible, like a spirit — perhaps from a time when there were no clocks in the house, only sun patches crawling across the rug.

Or the crackle of bread. Just yesterday’s loaf, but with a little ridge in the crust that, if you listen closely, holds the generosity of the hands that made it. That sound isn’t just crunch — it’s the rustle of the day gone by, turned into something with body. And then — my husband’s hand. It appears in the doorway each morning. It holds nothing. It just quietly pulls the door closed behind him so as not to disturb my stillness. The hand is slender, freckled like a constellation mapped across skin. It carries a tenderness, a pain he’s borne for years — unspoken, but deeply felt.

That hand doesn’t seem entirely human — there’s something of wood in it, of bark, of an old instrument no one plays anymore, but which still holds music. He never says I’m protecting you, he simply leaves softly, as if slipping through air, so as not to disturb a single thought — just to let me stay in myself a little longer.

Sometimes, on mornings like this, a vinyl record plays. Its voice is scratchy, slightly broken — like old letters that still rustle in memory. It’s not background noise, but a presence — a third being in the room, breathing time into everything. And you find yourself more real somehow, even the air seems to deepen.

Priceless is the voice from another room whispering, I made coffee. The sun painting lines across your legs through the blinds. Fingers that suddenly find yours and don’t rush to let go. Tears that need no explanation. And especially — the kind of silence where you’re not afraid.

The magic is that all these things are ordinary. Invisible at first glance. You can’t sell them, gift-wrap them, or post them in a story. But lose them — and you lose something the sky itself couldn’t replace. And then you remember Pavić. The future is, indeed, a mirror. But sometimes, it’s the reflection of the present inside it that is truly priceless. Because suddenly, you see you’ve lived beside a miracle.

And didn’t notice. Or — you did. And you stayed.