Love Remains

An oyster, filter-feeding. Gills beating, current moving through, the suspended matter drawn from the water by a structure maintained across decades — no decision required, only the right architecture, kept. An irritant settles near the mantle. The body surrounds it, layer after layer of nacre, the same substance as the shell, the same substance the oyster has always produced. Time passes unmeasured. The pearl arrives.

The pearl arrives from the right structure maintained. The body kept doing what it knew how to do, around whatever entered.

Where do I start? Already started, long before the question arrived.

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