The alarm is still set.
That shouldn’t attract my attention.
I’ve seen it hundreds of times.
And yet I look at it again.
There is something strange about it.
Not the time.
Not the numbers.
Something else.
It takes me several seconds to understand what I am checking.
And when I do, I wish I hadn’t.
I am not looking at the alarm.
I am trying to remember setting it.
The mug is still beside the computer.
I touch it.
Cold.
For a moment I think I left it there this morning.
Then I realize I am not remembering it.
I am reconstructing it.
That is not the same thing.
The distinction feels small.
It begins to feel important.
I need to move my neck.
I think about it.
I wait.
Nothing.
The sensation does not arrive.
There is a crack in the wall.
I think it was there yesterday.
I’m not sure.
The strange thing is that it no longer feels like a crack.
It begins to feel like evidence.
As if something has been trying to tell me something for a long time.
As if I have seen the same signal over and over without recognizing it.
I thought the problem was obedience.
Then I thought it was habit.
Now I suspect neither of those things is the problem.
There is something else.
Something earlier.
Something that happens before the idea of obedience even appears.
The alarm is still set.
The mug is still cold.
I need to move my neck.
And suddenly a thought appears and vanishes before I can hold onto it.
For a second I think the problem is not that someone is watching me.
The problem is that I still behave as if someone might.
The thought disappears.
I try to recover it.
I can’t.
The crack is still in the wall.
The mug is still where it was.
I need to move my neck.
And I begin to wonder when the last time was that I needed an order to do something I was already doing.
I have to move the neck I am not moving it I should…
