I do not keep reading because I understand more.
I keep reading because I understand less.
Last night I did it again.
I promised myself I would only look for five minutes.
Just curiosity.
Nothing else.
Five minutes.
Then close the tab.
Go to sleep.
Forget about it.
But the problem is that I am never really looking for objects.
I am looking for something worse.
I am looking for an explanation.
And I cannot find one.
So I keep scrolling.
Further down.
Further down.
Further down.
The room was dark.
Only the glow of the monitor.
The air smelled of warm dust.
Plastic from the charger.
A coffee cup that had been empty for hours.
There was a thin layer of dirt along the baseboard.
I had never noticed it before.
Last night I did.
Because I had been staring at the screen for almost an hour.
Not buying.
Looking.
There is a difference.
I think.
I am not entirely sure.
At first everything seems ridiculous.
The names.
The descriptions.
The photographs.
Everything feels exaggerated.
Almost absurd.
And yet I stay.
That is the embarrassing part.
Not the arousal.
The staying.
The fact that I do not close the page.
The fact that I keep looking.
As if something is about to explain something important.
Something about me.
Something I still do not understand.
I opened another tab.
Then another.
Then another.
Not because I wanted to buy anything.
Because I wanted to compare.
That is what I told myself.
Compare.
As if I were researching a washing machine.
Or a monitor.
Or anything else.
A lie.
I knew it.
The screen illuminated my hands.
They rested motionless on the keyboard.
Waiting.
I do not know for what.
Waiting.
Dust floated in front of the monitor.
Tiny particles crossing the light.
Up.
Down.
Up.
Down.
I could not stop watching them.
Or stop reading.
Every article led to another.
Every image to another.
Every explanation to another explanation.
And the more I read.
The less certain I became.
Because curiosity has something unpleasant about it.
Something adhesive.
Once it arrives it refuses to leave.
It begins as a question.
Then it becomes a presence.
Then noise.
Then a kind of hunger.
Not physical.
Worse.
The other kind.
The one without a name.
I caught myself checking the tracking number of an old order.
One I barely remembered.
I just wanted to see if it still existed.
The date.
The confirmation.
The route.
As if the journey mattered more than the package.
Maybe it did.
Maybe it always did.
Because I am beginning to suspect that I never wanted the object.
I wanted the waiting.
The anticipation.
That strange space between desire and delivery.
That place where I can still imagine anything.
It has not arrived yet.
It does not exist yet.
I do not yet have to ask myself why I wanted it.
The chair creaked.
Only once.
It startled me.
As if someone had entered the room.
Nobody.
Just me.
Just the monitor.
Just the soft hum of the fan.
And all those open tabs.
Looking at me.
Not the other way around.
I need to close this.
I thought it.
Seriously.
I need to close this.
But I opened another page.
Just one more.
Just to understand.
Just to check one thing.
Just to—
No.
It was not for that.
I think I already knew.
I don’t want to admit how much I think about the package.
That’s the first thing I should write.
Not the object.
Not what’s inside.
The package.
The waiting.
The way it occupies space inside my head.
It’s ridiculous.
I know.
I’ve barely finished the purchase and I’m already checking the tracking page.
As if I could make it move faster.
As if watching the map could somehow turn the wheels of the truck.
It embarrasses me.
Because for hours I’m not thinking about pleasure.
I’m thinking about logistics.
Warehouses.
Barcodes.
Conveyor belts.
An anonymous box slowly moving toward me.
And yet I feel something strangely close to excitement.
Sade would have enjoyed that humiliation.
Not the object.
The waiting.
The obedience.
The discovery that part of me no longer lives in my body but inside a tracking page.
Order received.
Order processed.
In transit.
Each sentence is insignificant.
Yet I keep reading them.
Again and again.
As if they contain a revelation.
As if they were instructions.
I think that is where submission begins.
Not inside the box.
But in accepting that my emotional state depends on a system that has never seen me.
A warehouse decides something.
And my heart responds.
A scanner emits a flash.
And I feel relief.
A delivery driver turns onto a random street.
And suddenly my afternoon acquires meaning.
It shouldn’t work like that.
But it does.
That is the uncomfortable part.
The honesty.
The certainty that desire happened long before the package arrived.
Maybe before I even bought it.
Maybe during the search.
Maybe during the fantasy.
Maybe during that absurd moment when I imagined a future version of myself feeling different.
Freer.
More complete.
Less alone.
The walls of the room seem to watch me.
They do nothing.
They simply exist.
White.
Still.
Covered in the grey light of late afternoon.
And I refresh the page again.
For no reason.
For no necessity.
As if I were praying.
Sade understood something about invisible architectures.
Structures that do not require bars.
Forms of obedience mistaken for choice.
Surrenders disguised as freedom.
The box has not arrived yet.
But part of me already has.
Part of me is living inside it.
Between layers of cardboard.
Waiting.
And that is the thing I struggle to admit.
Not the desire.
Not the purchase.
Not the contents.
The waiting.
The absolute and silent submission of waiting.
I have to move my neck I am not moving it…
