You wait, or you leave the air still, or you hide with a cup. Either way, you are not doing the job the photons need.

The storm arrives like a brown lid. Leaf Hall becomes a room of pale stretchers. Etiolation is a fancy word you will spell correctly on a test and hate in a tray. Stems go long and weak, hunting a sun that is a rumor. Sugar banks empty. Imani runs the LEDs late, which is not the same as on time. Some plants live as plants. Few live as food.

Hearth is fine. You are fine. Cans click in the galley. Lina’s visor sits dotted with cinnamon you did not wipe because you were elsewhere, being patient.

Oskar sets the painted tomato face-down. “Dark is not a nap when you are a leaf. Dark is a withdrawal.”

You write the log. The sky stays tea-brown for a sol and a half, as if it wants to be sure you noticed.

THE END

What you learned: a dust storm is a photon famine. Plants stretch and pale in the dark (etiolation) and spend the sugar they made in the light. Still air can starve a leaf of CO2 even when the room number looks fine. Lamps and fans are meals, not jewelry.