Stillness Between the Pages
Creative Nonfiction by Zary Fekete
Some mornings begin like a question that hasn’t yet learned how to ask itself.
I rise before the sun has done its part. The house is still. The windows still carry the breath of the night. I make tea or coffee, I don’t remember which until I taste it, and I sit at the table with a book that’s been read a thousand times and never once the same.
The Bible lies open, its pages worn like an old coat. I don’t rush. The verses wait. They’re not clocks. They are thresholds. Sometimes, I read just one line and stare at it like it’s a stone I’ve never seen before. Sometimes, I write that line down in my journal. Sometimes, I write what I think it meant. But often, I just write it plain and let it echo. Echoes are more honest than interpretations.
There are birds outside. Not poetic birds, not metaphors…but real ones. They argue in the cedar branches. They test their names. A cardinal flashes like a lit match. A grackle stares like it knows me. The sky is still loose, colorless, waiting for definition. I know that feeling.
This is the time of day when things are most themselves. The curtain is thin. The trees still half-asleep, the grass dewy and waiting to be trampled. Sometimes I notice the ant trail on the windowsill or the way the steam from my mug curls like a question mark. These things matter. They don’t say much, but they mean everything.
My journal isn’t neat. The handwriting shifts with my mood. Some days the ink bleeds. Some days the pen skips. I let it. I don’t fix it. If God wanted calligraphy, He’d have asked for monks. What I offer, instead, is this: fragments. Thoughts written sideways. A half-remembered prayer. A list of names I don’t want to forget.
There are verses that never let me go. Micah 6:8 is one. I carry it like a stone in my pocket. “Do justice, love mercy, walk humbly.” It sounds simple. It isn’t. Some days I write each word on a separate line. Like it’s a poem. Like it’s three steps and I’ve only ever managed one.
Outside, a squirrel performs a tightrope act on the fence. The leaves shift like breath. I glance at the sky again…it has chosen a color now, something between silver and memory. I close the Bible. Not because I’m done, but because I’m full.
Then, I sit in the stillness that follows. I let the morning close around me like a parent tucking in a child. I don’t move for a long time. I listen for the voice that doesn’t speak in syllables. I listen to the world remembering itself. I wait until I feel seen.
And then, when the moment has finished with me, I begin the rest of my day.
But I walk slower.
I notice more.
And sometimes…though not always…I remember to be kind.
BIO: Zary Fekete grew up in Hungary. He has a debut novella Words on the Page out with DarkWinter Lit Press and a short story collection To Accept the Things I Cannot Change: Writing My Way Out of Addiction out with Creative Texts. He enjoys books, podcasts, and many many many films. Twitter and Instagram: @ZaryFekete Bluesky:zaryfekete.bsky.social