Sometimes it happens that the evening comes not when it gets dark outside. 🌆 It comes when you turn off unnecessary voices and turn on music that you didn't know before.

I have a strange habit - collecting other people's playlists. 🎶 Someone leaves them open, someone sends a link in passing, someone forgets to delete a fragment of a melody from the general chat. And so you sit on the floor, drink something hot and listen to someone else sing something very special to you.

I like to eavesdrop on such songs. 🎧 I like to imagine who listened to them before me. Maybe someone cried. 😢 Maybe someone was waiting for a message that never came. 💔 Maybe someone met my gaze across the subway car and then carried this rhythm in their head for a whole week.

When the music is sad, I brew myself a small drink that I came up with by accident. I call it "hot silence". 🍫 It's not tea or cocoa. It's a glass of hot milk with a drop of honey, a pinch of cinnamon and a small piece of dark chocolate. All this dissolves slowly - as slowly as unnecessary thoughts dissolve.

On such evenings, I don't write to anyone. 🤫 I don't feel like talking. I just drink my "hot silence" and listen to someone else singing for someone I will never meet.

Sometimes I think that's the magic of music - being a bridge between those who don't know each other. 🌉 We all turn on someone else's words so that for a while they become ours. We all close our eyes and say "one more track." 🔄 And so on until it gets easier.