The hill does most of the talking here. Houses stacked on top of each other like they lost an argument about space a hundred years ago and just stayed put. The wooden balconies, carved, sagging, painted once in a color nobody remembers now, hang over the street like they're eavesdropping.
Seven twenty-five. The light is doing that thing where it stops being daylight and hasn't decided to be night yet. Windows go gold one by one. Somewhere below, the Mtkvari moves without asking permission from anyone, the way rivers do. I can smell woodsmoke, faint, and something frying two streets over. No idea what. Doesn't matter.
No one is on this particular stretch of steps. Just me and the camera, and the camera doesn't count as company, it counts as a witness. I load another frame and think about how every city has a version of itself that's falling apart beautifully, and how Tbilisi wears it without apology. Paint peels here like it's proud of the wall underneath.
A balcony like this could tell you who lived there. Who fought on it, who smoked on it, who leaned over the railing waiting for someone who was late, always late. I don't know any of their names. I just know the light hit the wood at this angle, at this hour, and I was standing here to see it. That's the whole story, really. Basta così.
