Morning on the kitchen window began with a pause. A gecko waited on the frame until a bead of dew chose a toe, then another, then four. Only after that did it tap the glass, as if asking whether the pane was awake. The geranium on the sill nodded once. The gecko took exactly one windowsill and stopped, tidy as a visitor who knows the length of a polite call.
We asked at the kiosk below the building. "They do not scramble," said the woman who sells rolls and extra napkins. "Dew first, hello second, walk third. If the leaf has not nodded, they sit. I wrote it on the complaint book, but it came out as thanks."
The gardener who waters the indoor pots keeps a quieter note. "The cups are only dew," she said. "Nothing sticks that was not already going to shine. The glass gets a greeting, the geranium gets a bow, and nobody hurries past the soil."
The day after, the same gecko came back at tea. It fitted four new cups, waited for the leaf, and walked the sill again as if the route had been saved in a tiny guest book.