The Sink Full of Dishes You Didn't Leave

You boil lentils that night. You take the time to fry the cumin and asafoetida in ghee until it pops, the way your mother taught you. You chop a second onion you don't strictly need, just to hear the knife on the board. For two hours, the only task is the one in front of you. The project management tool you were going to optimize sits dark on your laptop. The salon appointment stays unscheduled.

You cook again the next evening. And the one after. The dal is perfect, but you eat it fast, standing over the sink, thinking of the other tabs open in your mind.

A month in, your husband starts bringing home plastic containers from the new Andhra place on his route. He leaves them on the counter with a hopeful air. You heat the food and eat it. You wash the containers and stack them, and then, around nine, you go to the kitchen and make a small pot of something else. A quick raita. A tomato chutney that needs you to watch it. Your hands need the work. Your brain needs the single, narrow channel.

Your personal project deadline passes. The salon visit becomes a haircut you give yourself in the bathroom, clipping three inches off the ends over a spread-out newspaper. You don’t fix the tool. You find a brittle, furious rhythm in the kitchen. You julienne carrots for a salad nobody asked for. You toast peanuts for a chutney you’ll freeze and forget.

Months later, you open the old project folder. The wireframes look like a city built by a stranger. A better stranger. You read the notes you wrote to your future self, about focus and flow and scope. The language is confident and foreign. You close the tab.

You throw out the frozen chutney, the container furred with ice. You run the disposal for a long time.