For the Marquis de Sade, eternity was not a religious promise but a failure of the exit mechanism. Suffering did not become profound because it was intense. It became profound because it continued after every possible meaning had already been exhausted. True torture began when the nervous system realized it was no longer waiting for an ending. It was waiting for the disappearance of its ability to wait.
There is a drop falling into the sink.
It was not there yesterday.
Or perhaps it was.
I am not entirely certain.
I heard it a few minutes ago.
Now I hear it again.
Then again.
It follows no recognizable rhythm.
That is what bothers me.
Not the frequency.
The absence of frequency.
I look up.
The crack in the corner has changed.
Yesterday it stopped before reaching the ceiling.
Now it touches the molding.
Not by much.
Perhaps a centimeter.
Perhaps less.
Enough to stop looking like a crack and begin looking like a decision.
I try to remember its exact shape.
I cannot.
Memory always collaborates with the wall.
The room has a peculiar way of winning every argument.
The air tastes of damp lime.
The light remains motionless on the desk.
The dust hangs exactly where it was an hour ago.
It does not seem to be falling.
It does not seem to be floating.
It simply remains.
As though it has forgotten its purpose.
There is a note on the desk.
I do not remember placing it there.
I have seen it before.
I am almost certain.
Yet I am also almost certain I have never read it.
It remains folded.
I do not open it.
Still, I know what it says.
I have to move my neck.
The sentence arrives before the act of reading.
As if it crossed the distance on its own.
I look away.
The drop falls again.
I think about Sade.
Not the writer.
Not the prisoner.
The observer.
Someone who discovers that eternity does not mean living forever.
It means remaining inside the same second for too long.
The drop falls again.
The crack appears longer.
I should not be able to verify that.
I have no reference point.
And yet I know.
In the same way I know the note no longer contains exactly the same sentence.
It still says:
I have to move my neck.
But there is something else.
A second line.
It was not there before.
I am certain.
I do not read it.
I do not want to approach it.
I can see it from here.
The handwriting looks like mine.
That is not the worst part.
The worst part is that it looks older than mine.
As though it had been written by a previous version of me.
As though someone left instructions for inhabiting this room long before I entered it.
The drop falls.
The crack advances.
The note waits.
And for the first time I have the uncomfortable feeling that none of the three things is happening in the present.
I have to move my neck.
I am not moving it.
I should.
Because I am beginning to suspect that the second line appeared when I stopped.
I have to move my neck I am not moving it…
