Tomorrow I begin building my second brain. Tonight we keep a wake for the man sitting here. He is not a bad man—only one who stayed too long in certain rooms, who learned the creak of familiar floors, who circled the same questions until they sounded like answers. He carried what he thought he needed. He opened doors that led back into themselves. He lingered where he should have moved.

So we sit with him, quiet and without judgment. A glass is set down. A chair is pulled back. There is the small, ordinary dignity of an ending. What is worth keeping, I take. What is not, I leave. There is no ceremony beyond that—only a clean division between what continues and what does not.

I have gathered my pieces. Past, present, and the faint outline of what comes next all fit now. They hold. This is the last night he speaks. Tomorrow I do not return.

Set your face like flint, and hold the helm—the sea will not ask who you were. Set your face like flint, and hold the helm—the past has no voice where you’re going. Set your face like flint, and hold the helm—no tether, no turning, no second look.

The wake ends without announcement. The room empties. The light goes out. And in the morning, there is only forward. I step out, and I do not come back.