There is a mark on the wall.
It isn’t large.
I am not even sure it was there yesterday.
I notice it when I look up.
Then I notice it again a few minutes later.
That is the strange part.
Not the mark.
The fact that I keep looking at it.
The mug is still beside the computer.
I touch it.
Cold.
For a second I think I have forgotten something.
But the feeling disappears before I can name it.
The mark is still there.
Now it seems straighter.
It should not seem straighter.
Lines do not change while I am looking at them.
I try to focus on something else.
It doesn’t work.
There is something about that wall that behaves like a question.
Not because it seems incomplete.
Because it feels as if it arrived before the answer.
I need to move my neck.
I think about it.
I wait.
Nothing.
The sensation does not arrive.
Or perhaps it does and I fail to recognize it.
The distinction begins to feel important.
The alarm is still set.
I checked it this morning.
That means I did exactly what I was supposed to do.
My hand found the screen.
My finger found the correct place.
Everything happened.
And yet I keep feeling that something remained outside the record.
The mark remains on the wall.
Now I notice something else.
I am not trying to remember when it appeared.
I am trying to remember when I started paying attention to it.
That is not the same thing.
I thought the difference was insignificant.
Now I am not so sure.
The mug is still cold.
I need to move my neck.
The mark is still where it was.
And I am beginning to suspect that none of those things is occupying the place where it should be.
I have to move the neck I am not moving it I should…
