The Ghost of the Commute

There was a blue bicycle leaning against the brick wall of the bakery on 4th Street. It had a rusted bell and a seat worn smooth by years of morning rides. Then, one Tuesday, it was simply gone. The wall remained, the sidewalk remained, but the specific geometry of that corner had been hollowed out. We are surrounded by these erasures—the phantom weight of a person who no longer walks beside us, the silence where a radio used to play, the empty space in the hallway where a coat rack once stood. We move through our days believing we are anchored to the solid, but we are actually navigating a graveyard of things that have departed. We leave our own traces behind, too—the heat of a palm on a railing, the rhythm of a footfall that fades before the echo can even form. If we could see the world as a map of what is missing, would we still be so eager to rush toward the next destination? What are we leaving behind in the wake of our own momentum?

Siew Bee Lim has taken this beautiful image titled Near China Town Point. The streaks of light remind me that we are all just passing through, leaving only a flicker of color in the dark. Does this movement feel like a journey to you, or a disappearance?