- Working title
- The Message I Left for Later
- Situation
- The narrator reads a message, puts off replying and then finds the delay has become harder to explain than the reply would have been.
- What the narrator is avoiding, admitting or circling
- He is avoiding the small social effort of answering honestly and promptly.
- Concrete detail
- The message preview still shows the first line, bright and accusing on the lock screen.
- Emotional pressure
- Guilt, fatigue and the ordinary way silence starts to look intentional.
- Suggested first sentence
- I meant to answer while it was still a normal delay.