Sals stood at the eastern rail of the training yard, where San Juan's packed earth gave way to open farmland and, further out, the dark seam of the forest.

Morning has come. That is all it has done — come. No drama in it, no answer to what the night held. Sals stands at the edge of the yard, where the ground he knows meets open land and, beyond that, the dark line of trees. He faces the light. He lets it reach him slowly. Something in his chest, held tight without his knowing, begins to ease. He breathes fully. And yet the difficult thing is still there, quieter now, changed in texture rather than gone. This is what stillness can offer. Not erasure. Not resolution. Just a moment where the body is allowed to unclench, where breath comes without a fight, where you stand at the boundary of what is familiar and what is open and simply face the warmth. You have known mornings like this. Ones that arrived plain and unhurried after something that cost you. The calm does not mean it is over. It means you are still here, still breathing, still at the rail. What does your body do when it finally remembers it is allowed to rest?