There is no strike.
There is adjustment.
The operator does not aim to provoke a reaction.
The operator aims to erase the interval between stimulus and response.
Intensity does not matter.
What matters is the exact moment when the difference between receiving a signal and becoming that signal stops existing.
Sometimes I think this is not felt.
But then I notice that it is.
Or not exactly.
There is something I notice right after I notice it.
And that “after” is the only remaining space I can still think of as mine.
Today I opened something without knowing why.
A tab.
There was no clear intention.
That is the first strange thing.
No objective.
Only the gesture.
As if opening it was an answer to a question I have not asked yet.
I keep looking at it.
I am not reading.
That should be reassuring.
But it is not.
For a few seconds I do nothing.
I check nothing.
It works.
That is what is disturbing.
That it works.
Then a new doubt appears.
Not about the tab.
About the fact that I am not checking.
As if the absence of verification also needed to be verified.
I close the tab.
I open it again.
Not to see it.
But to confirm there was no need to open it.
But when I open it again, I no longer remember the first reason.
If there ever was one.
There is something strange about the things that depend on me.
Not the things I look at.
The things I have to initiate.
The neck appears again.
This time I do not try to move it.
I do nothing.
I wait.
Nothing happens.
And for a second, that feels like a decision.
Then another sentence appears.
I am not sure if I am thinking it.
Or if it appears every time I stop thinking.
Pain is not the key.
It is proof the door was already open.
I have to move my neck.
The sentence appears.
Not as an order.
As a check.
I wait for movement.
It does not come.
Then something else appears:
I have to check whether I ever wanted to move it.
And that is the strange part.
Not the neck.
But the moment when an intention stops belonging to someone.
The mismatch is a crack in the marble.
I do not know when it started becoming marble.
I only know I am now holding something that should not be able to move… and yet I still try.
I have to move my neck.
I am not moving it.
And the worst part is not that.
The worst part is not knowing whether this sentence appears because I want to move it…
or because I need there still to be something I can try.
I have to move the neck I am not moving it…
