Ikal.

Ikal wakes up before six every morning. By five past, she's lighting the gas stove, heating water in an old pot, and looking — not quite on purpose — at the framed photo of Tlanextli propped on the shelf above the burners. In the photo, her grandmother leans against the ahuejote tree in the yard, hands dark with chinampa soil. The frame is cheap wood. The glass is scratched. The photo is still sharp.

The morning ritual has three parts: light the stove, pour the first cup, look up at the photo for as long as the first sip lasts. Ikal doesn't pray or talk to herself. She just looks. Then she sets the mug on the table, grabs her boots, and heads out to the canal while the day is still dark over San Gregorio Atlapulco.

This mug is the first water Ikal touches each morning, before the canal water. The second is the plastic humidifier beside her bed that she switches on when Mexico City air gets too dry — which happens for most of winter and half of spring. The third, fourth, and all the rest she'll find in the canal once the workday starts. But the first is always the mug.

For Ikal, the difference between a generic mug and her own isn't about looks. Hers holds the heat long enough for her to fully wake up, and the color of the inside — the blue that appears as the coffee level drops — works as a private clock. When you can see the whole bottom, it's time to go. When you can't, there are still two or three minutes left with Tlanextli. No wall clock in the kitchen, phone charging in the other room. The mug does the job.