All around her the empty spaces filled in,

faster and faster and more completely.

So fast and so intensely that

the process blurred.

The blurring wasn’t okay with her.

She wanted to watch it happen,

wanted to imprint every detail of every drop

on her memory,

to be recalled with the same intensity

the second, third, fourth times as the first.

Because of course she was worried

about evaporation.

And how empty the spaces might get

and how they would get filled up again.

After all, you just never knew about

these things.

But even as she willed her eyes and brain

to work harder, she noticed a fading of

the filling in. So she closed her eyes and just

breathed instead.