NJ Jian (Wu Nien-jen)

I don’t speak much. My work doesn’t ask for it, and my home doesn’t demand it. But I hear everything — the pauses, the sighs, the words that don’t get said. I’ve built systems that run without fault, yet the ones I live in keep slipping, gently, out of alignment. I walk through our apartment, past rooms filled with the hum of air conditioning and the soft echo of my son’s questions. My daughter stares at her phone. My wife looks out the window. No one sees me. And still, I stay.