I suppose it’s rather late to be putting this out there, but sleep has become... difficult. The quiet, you see. After all these years, it's the quiet that finally gets to you. The girl, the younger one, she’s moved into supported living. Her own place, really, with a bit of oversight. Good for her. It leaves me with an excess of time I hadn't quite accounted for. A deficit of purpose, perhaps. I hadn't realized how much of my routine, my internal clock even, had been dictated by her schedule. The meals, the errands, the little interventions when she'd get overwhelmed by something or other. Now there’s just… empty space. An expanse, really. And in that vastness, my mind, rather inconveniently, keeps returning to a particular incident. Decades ago. It wasn't a traumatic event, not in the clinical sense, nor a combat scenario, but it left its own sort of indelible mark. A civilian situation. Someone had presented an opportunity, a chance to deviate from the prescribed path, to explore something entirely foreign to my training. It felt… illicit. The sheer audacity of even considering it, after years of rigid adherence, of maintaining discipline in the face of chaos. I remember the sensation in my gut, a peculiar flutter that wasn’t fear, not exactly. More like an awakening. I declined, of course. My conditioning was too deeply ingrained. The logical progression dictated by duty, by what was expected, by what I had been taught was the ONLY viable option, held sway. And I went on. Achieved what was expected. Received the commendations. Maintained decorum. And yet… that flutter. That brief, almost imperceptible tremor of something else. I often wonder what divergent trajectory my life might have taken had I permitted myself that singular indulgence. It's not regret, not precisely. That’s too simple a word. More a persistent, low-frequency hum of curiosity. A mild, chronic ache for an experience that was never actualized. And now, with the unexpected cessation of my prior obligations, with this sudden, expansive quiet, it just… surfaces. Again and again. I mean I don't even — whatever. It’s just… there. Like a phantom limb, perhaps. A sensation of absence where something might have been. A peculiar thing, the human mind.