There is an open page on the table.
I do not remember opening it.
The bottom right corner is folded.
A small mark, like repeated pressure.
I look at it.
It does not change.
But the mark feels deeper than yesterday.
Or I think it does.
I have no way to check.
Until I find another identical page in the same book.
Same folded corner.
Same mark.
Same pressure.
It is not a copy.
It is the same book.
In two different places in the apartment.
I close one.
Leave it on the table.
Open the other.
The mark is still there.
Exactly the same.
That should end the doubt.
It does not.
It deepens it.
Because now the question is no longer where the mark is.
But how many times I have been reading the same page without noticing.
I try to remember the first time.
Nothing appears.
What appears instead is something else.
The feeling that I already knew what I would find before opening the book.
As if opening it was a repetition.
Not a beginning.
A continuation.
I go to the kitchen.
There is a mug in the sink.
I do not recognize it.
I turn it.
The mark on the handle is identical to the one in the book.
It should not make sense.
The photograph of the book is on the table.
I pick it up again.
The page is still folded.
But now I notice something.
The photo is slightly out of focus.
As if taken from a position where I was not looking.
I check it on my phone.
The same image.
But the date does not match my memory.
It is not recent.
It is from three months ago.
I do not remember taking it then.
What unsettles me most is not that.
It is that the mark on the mug does not appear in the photo.
But it is in the book.
And it was not in the book before.
Or I thought it was not.
I keep checking.
Book.
Mug.
Photo.
Book.
Mug.
Photo.
Each check should stabilize something.
It does not.
Each check worsens the sequence.
Because now there is a chain repeating without a clear origin.
And each repetition feels more familiar.
Not newer.
More recognized.
There is a rule I do not remember learning:
things do not change when you look at them. What changes is when you stop knowing when you first saw them.
I close the book.
I open it again.
The page is folded.
The mark is still there.
And for the first time I notice something worse than doubt.
The feeling that opening the book is not an action.
It is a response.
As if the book already knows when I will look at it.
The mug is back in the sink.
I do not remember moving it.
But I also do not remember seeing it for the first time.
And as I try to fix that memory, I notice something that was not there before:
the folded page now has a second mark.
Small.
Vertical.
Exactly like the one on the mug handle.
And I do not know which one came first.
My neck I am not moving it…
