_{Edited By PhotoFilter}

John kept his thumb over Call, the green circle patient. Three hours earlier, between dry hills and eucalyptus, his wife had asked if he had landed from Delhi. He joked about airline coffee, tucked the hotel silence back into his pocket.

A woman slid into the seat beside him. “Tina,” she said, setting a scuffed sketchbook on her lap. Her English was soft, her vowels warm. “I am from Tunis, Sidi Bou Saïd. White walls, blue doors, sea like glass.”

_{Panoramic view of the city of Sidi Bou Said}

They traded modest facts that felt bigger than they were. She studied architecture, drew courtyards that manufacture shade, wind catchers that persuade air to behave. He offered Harbour Bridge trivia and shaved a truth, calling his wife my flatmate. Two timing often starts that small.

At Canberra, Tina shook his hand, slipped a card into his palm, heat lingering. Tina Ben Youssef, Architecture and Heritage, Pop up Jasmine and Concrete, Sunday 6 PM, Lake Burley Griffin. On the back, Fundraiser for Kairouan mosaics, volunteers welcome. Maybe a trap, maybe a bridge.

He walked the lake at dusk, the card syncing with his pulse. A text arrived, All good? He framed the water, then lowered the phone. Two cursors blinked, one in his message, one in his conscience.

He went Sunday, telling himself charity is not a date. The pop up smelled of mint tea and hot brik. Photos showed Tunis courtyards, mashrabiya honeycombing shade, doors blue as sky shards. Tina, sleeves rolled, taped a banner, Preserve today to love tomorrow.

“You came,” she said, as if it were ordinary.

“For the mosaics,” he said, half true, therefore not true.

She pressed a VOLUNTEER sticker to his chest and gave him the float. “Explain tesserae,” she smiled. “Small pieces, big picture.”

He found he could. He told strangers how fragments become scenes that survive heat and time. He counted change, carried trays, rinsed glasses. Desire stepped back, usefulness stepped in. Quiet lesson, the world is repaired by small motions.

After closing they walked beneath plane trees. Water made a polite applause. He admitted to a tiredness sleep could not touch. She spoke of La Marsa, jasmine sellers at dusk, the TGM stitching the lake between Tunis and La Goulette, windows cracked so the night breeze could comb the rooms.

“Do you have someone?” she asked.

He almost said, It is complicated. He chose the load bearing truth. “Yes. I am married.”

The word cleared the air. A light left their eyes, not all of it. What stayed felt like a preface to friendship, edges bright.

“Come tomorrow as witness,” Tina said. “Five slides on patios and climate. Do not seduce anyone, convince them shade is an art.”

Temptation did not vanish, it changed shape. Back at the hotel, silence gathered like ash. He called before it hardened.

“I lied by omission,” he told his wife. “I met someone on the bus. I went to her event. Nothing happened, but I rehearsed what could. I do not want a novel to start without you.”

Water quiet on the line. Then, “Thank you. I do not need you punished, I need you placed. Where are your feet?”

“Near the right edge,” he said. “Too near another.”

“Then step back,” she said. “Keep the view.”

On Monday he sat second row. Tina showed patios making weather, high walls milking breeze, basins teaching heat stillness, alleys laid to the wind. “Shade is not absence,” she said. “It is design.”

Afterward he said, “I cannot do dinner. But my wife and I would like to see these places. Do you have a map?”

She handed a second card, Light Itinerary, Tunis, Sidi Bou, Kairouan. Her smile held understanding, not loss.

On the walk back the aftertaste arrived, secrecy and performance, the weight of explanations. He set it down. He had enjoyed the spark, he would not drink the rest of the fire.

That night he texted a photo, blue hour on the lake, the banner folded, his VOLUNTEER sticker on a paper cup like a badge he could return. All good, she wrote.

Placing my feet, he replied.

Two timing did not happen. Its trace remains, a faint halo when the hand shakes. He keeps it as guardrail, the memory of the slope and the step that chose sound ground, and the view he did not lose by looking back.

---

Thank you very much for reading, it's time to invite my friends @yonaikerurso, @drhira, @paholags to participate in this contest.

Best Regards,
@kouba01