Alex and Claire | The Fidgets of the Faithful

TEXT THREAD

Alex:
Update from yesterday’s silence experiment.
I made it thirty minutes.
Then the panic set in.

Claire:
What kind of panic?

Alex:
The what-if-I-am-forgotten kind.
Feels like the internet has trained us to believe quiet means irrelevant.

Claire:
Maybe it just means unobserved.
Those are not the same.

Alex:
Tell that to the part of me that thinks belonging is measured in notifications.

Claire:
That part needs a nap.

EMAIL
Subject: absence

Claire —

You ever get the feeling that if you stop moving
everyone will notice they do not need you?

I sat at my desk today
hands still
heart loud

and suddenly I saw the space where adrenaline usually hides the truth.

When I stop
I hear the question I keep outrunning:

What if my worth shrinks when my motion does?

I do not want that to be true
but some days it feels like physics.

— A

Claire → Alex
Re: absence

Alex —

That is not physics
that is fear trying to masquerade as logic.

You are confusing usefulness with value.
One changes.
The other does not.

Do you know what stillness reveals?

What you reach for when applause goes quiet.

Let that teach you something.

C

TEXT THREAD

Claire:
My turn to confess.
I get fidgety too.
If I stop helping
I am terrified I will be in the way.

Alex:
That makes no sense.
You are the person people count on.

Claire:
Exactly.
Being needed is easier than being known.

Alex:
I did not expect that from you.

Claire:
I did not either
until I had to sit with myself.

Alex:
Here is to not running from the pause.

Claire:
Here is to waiting long enough to hear what it says.

Claire — Late Evening

She closed her laptop
and let the quiet settle without rushing it away.

The room held a gentle hush
as if the day had finally stopped asking anything of her.

She wondered when they both learned
to outrun the pause
and whether they might one day walk into it
without bracing.

Stillness did not feel empty tonight.
It simply felt like room to breathe.