Before the Like — Horn

Horn's thumb had nearly touched the heart before he'd read the first line.

Morning light lay across the kitchen bench. He was alone, the kettle ticking behind him, and a familiar creator had posted a photograph of a freshly shaped board. There was the recognisable corner of the workshop, the same easy opening to the caption. His hand had arrived with its little gift of approval already wrapped.

He pulled his thumb back.

Was he following the work, or the person?

He enlarged the photograph. A clean outline, beautifully finished. The caption made a claim about how the board would hold through a turn, but there wasn't enough explanation to judge it. In his own shaping bay, he'd want more than a good-looking surface before calling something sound.

Yet he wanted to like this. Not just the board. The whole small arrival: familiar words at the bench while the morning was still quiet.

Nothing shameful in that. Someone could make things that mattered to you without knowing you existed. The odd bit was how easily his feeling of recognition dressed itself as being recognised.

Horn set the phone beside his cup. The creator hadn't asked him to confuse the two. His thumb had managed that without assistance.

He picked it up again. No grand purge of the people he followed, no punishment for making his morning companionable. Just a question he could actually use: if this same board and these same words came from a stranger, what would he notice?

The outline, first. Then the missing explanation.

He read the caption again, this time leaving his thumb on the edge of the phone.