Access

Last night I slept on a couch because a kid two days from 12 slid into my bed before I got there, having abandoned the makeshift bed she’d made for herself in her closet after about 10 minutes. She’d spent much of the afternoon in that closet, with the door shut and her headphones on, a perfect private retreat. She found the access panel to the bathroom plumbing in there, and it felt like the uncovering of some stirring mystery, such that she proposed placing a time capsule inside of it, just behind the panel. Her mother and I played along, though we discouraged the inclusion of snack foods.