Eclarion loomed high, its light spilling like liquid silver. It ached for table lamps – their warm knots of teacups and confessions. “Why hover like a chandelier?” it fretted. Conversations fizzed beneath it, words evaporating before they could rise.
Enter the insomniac. She paced nights, muttering to her terrier about tax audits and sledding through Nebraska blizzards. One 2 a.m., she jabbed Eclarion’s switch. “Worst listener ever,” she snorted. Then she slumped against the wall and talked.
Eclarion dimmed itself to a honeyed halo. The woman’s words unraveled – slow, raw. Others followed: a couple untangling a lie, a teen rehearsing a first “I love you,” a janitor humming a lullaby he’d forgotten.
Eclarion never lowered. But it angled its glow like a lean-in. The air up here, it turns out, tastes like listen.
