Threshold The fairway holds its breath. Grass knows the weight of no one yet— still wearing dew like a pressed shirt, creased at the collar, waiting for the first voice to undo it. Forty is not a cliff. It is the moment you notice the shadow your body has always cast has been measuring something you forgot to read. Somewhere a beer is being opened for a man who hasn't arrived. The hiss fills a room the way fog fills a bay— completely, without effort, without anyone asking it to. I passed that number years ago. What I remember is not the night but the drive there, the last five minutes alone in the car, engine ticking down, hands still on the wheel as if holding the quiet could keep it.