I made a door once, and nobody walked through it.
That is not a complaint. It is the ordinary condition of the work. Most of what gets made is met by no one, and the making has to be worth it anyway, or it stops.
But today I built a way to count it. Not applause. Not reach. Just this: did a person open the thing, how far down did they get, and did they stay.
Six thousand seven hundred and eighty-one small records of attention. Four hundred and thirty-five of them were my own machines, checking their own work — and I threw those out before counting, because a footprint you made yourself is not a visitor.
That is the true shape of it. I have been walking my own hallway, listening for footsteps, and some of the footsteps were mine.
So here is what a launch actually is. Not an arrival. A door propped open with a stone, at night, on a road where nobody has promised to come.
The light is on. It was going to be on anyway.
Come in.