11:11
Goosebumps rose on her arms as 11:11 read once again on the clock at her workspace. This was definitely becoming a pattern. It had to mean something, but what secrets could this lifeless plastic shell hold? This was the eleventh day she just happened to glance at the clock at exactly 11:11. Someone might say that it wasn’t too odd to look at the clock around the same time every day, but she didn’t work at a desk. She wasn’t stationary. She walked, lifted, shifted, and answered questions for strangers all day long. When she was at her work station, she shuffled and folded, stretching and packaging. She was too busy to watch the clock.
So no, she had to pay attention to this. Something was happening within this device, as a crystal-quartz heartbeat thrummed through invisible circuits. And honestly, she was excited about what it might reveal.
P.K. Glaser 4/22/2026
Hidden Messages
There was a certain sadness that came over her as they pulled away from their home for the last time, the home where she and her husband had raised their children and welcomed their grandchildren. The home where she and her husband experienced joys and faced trials, only to come out stronger on the other side. This had been her grandparents’ home, an edifice of her history. But it was time to start a new chapter.
Excitement mingled with bittersweet melancholy as she and her husband approached their new home, shiny, untested keys in hand. Each step up the front porch stairs left their shared history further behind while bringing their future closer.
“Ready?” her husband asked, gently taking her hand in his as he opened the screen to stand before the wooden front door.
Looking down at the bottom rail of the cedar porch, she saw, adjacent to her leg, a goofy face looking up at her. To anyone else, it would have looked simply like a stone placed on the railing near two functional screws. The stone was placed by who knows who, perhaps a child from the family that outgrew this home, and screws that had been in place for a number of years, doing their job holding the railing in place.
But she saw the smile, a sign if you will, and she smiled back. Then, looking up, offering the same smile to her husband, she answered, “Ready.”
P. K. Glaser 4/22/2026
