I don’t know exactly when it started.
I think it was something small. Something that didn’t feel serious.
Just reading. Just looking. Just one more thing.
Then another.
There was no real intention.
Just curiosity.
That’s what I keep telling myself.
The cup was on the table.
I looked at it because it was there.
I think.
I’m not sure if I saw it first or if I first thought I should look at it.
The cup wasn’t doing anything.
That was the worst part.
It wasn’t doing anything.
And still I kept checking it.
Sometimes I left it exactly as it was and walked away.
But when I came back…
I didn’t feel relief.
I felt the need to confirm it was still the same cup.
As if it could change without moving.
As if change didn’t need motion.
The alarm started like that too.
It rang three minutes early.
Three minutes before what.
I never knew before what.
But I started waiting for it.
That’s the worst part.
Waiting for something you don’t even know.
I tried a test.
I left the cup where it was.
I took a photo.
The photo matched.
That should have ended everything.
It should have.
But I couldn’t remember taking the photo.
Only the certainty that it existed.
Not the moment.
The neck started later.
Not as a problem.
As a check.
I have to move my neck.
I didn’t move it.
Then I tried.
But even when I tried…
I couldn’t tell if I was really trying.
Or if the idea of trying arrived before me.
Now I don’t know if things happen.
Or if they happen because I need to check them.
For a long time I thought the problem was not remembering what happened.
Now I think the problem is remembering something that may never have happened.
And there’s something worse.
I’m starting to suspect I wasn’t the one who began checking anything.
But it wasn’t something else either.
There is only a moment I can’t find.
The moment it started to matter.
The cup is still there.
That doesn’t calm me.
It makes me look again.
I have to move the neck there is no neck…
