The clock stutters like a drunk trying to remember the hour, hands slipping past their marks in quiet rebellion, as if even the machinery of time is aware that it too is being watched. And still, the sun pretends to rise, tilting through slats in a way that should feel familiar but instead fractures against the floor in shards of awkward light. No one is here to sweep up.
You lean against the frame of the day, letting it take the shape of your weight, though the frame itself seems to waver, unable to decide whether it is holding you or merely reflecting the idea of you. This is, of course, how it has always been, convincing you of your own coherence while their edges blur and buckle. The face looking back is half-yours, half-worn down by the eyes that refuse to rest, circling over the same hollow cheekbone like a vulture without an exit strategy.
Outside, the streets are unspooling quietly, laid bare like the backs of old photographs someone forgot to caption. The dog walkers, the paperboy, the woman in the red coat who insists she’s been here forever, all folding into the rhythm of a place that neither fully exists nor fully disappears. They step over the cracks like dancers rehearsing a fall, their shadows uncertain if they are cast by them or left behind.
And isn’t this the way it goes? The mind idling at the intersection of then and never quite, caught in the amber of an almost-sentence that rewrites itself the moment it is spoken. You meant to say something but the words, shy as moths near a flame, drifted apart before landing, scattering into the small corners where meaning waits but never fully emerges. The window remains open, a soft gesture of surrender, though to what exactly—wind, memory, or the faint hum of a distant train—no one can say. The hour thickens. And you, no more certain than the light slouching toward evening, continue watching the world tilt in on itself, folding at the seams like an envelope that might contain a letter or simply a space where one was meant to be.
Even the air hesitates, uncertain how much weight to give the silence that now occupies the room like a tenant between leases. You try to remember what it was that brought you here, what arrangement of small decisions lined the path to this particular corner of afternoon, but the answer drifts just beyond reach. Perhaps it was the shape of a conversation you didn’t finish, or the echo of a laugh that felt borrowed. The details blur, retreating like figures behind frosted glass.
The ceiling fan hums, circles, imitating the shape of thought without arriving. Its slow orbit marks time in fractions you can’t divide evenly. Beneath it, you consider the room not as it is but as it was the first time you entered, bright with the possibility of untold stories, before the furniture settled in like tired guests overstaying their welcome.
There is no conclusion, only the slow unwinding of hours, soft and pliable as dusk. The light spills forward as if forgetting to stop, pooling along the edges of the floor. Somewhere, someone lights a match, and the brief flicker suggests a kind of answer, though you know better than to ask the question aloud. The room closes gently around you, and the day slips quietly out the back, leaving nothing behind but the faint outline of its departure.
