The Marquis de Sade did not work with the scream, but with its gradual disappearance, with the exact point where something no longer needs sound to continue existing.
In the chalk room there is no echo.
But the echo appears when I am not listening to it.
When I approach, it disappears.
There is no stable silence. Only incompatible versions of the same phenomenon depending on where it is observed from.
The damp stain on the ceiling has the shape of a scar.
When I close my eyes, it is on the wall.
When I open them, it returns to the ceiling.
There is no movement between positions. Only disagreement about location.
I try to speak.
I don’t remember the sentence.
But my mouth still holds the sensation of having finished it.
No sound appears. Only the impression of something already spoken without acoustic record.
The note is still on the table.
“I have to move my neck.”
A second line appears underneath.
“You already did.”
I don’t remember reading it before.
But my neck is not in the same position as a moment ago.
There was no transition.
Only current state without visible continuity.
On my neck there is a mark.
It does not hurt.
But it matches exactly the edge of the sentence written in the note.
As if both had been applied by the same gesture at different times.
The cup is on the table.
When I look directly at it, it loses weight.
When I look away, it becomes heavy again.
It does not fall. It does not float. It only changes its relation to gravity depending on whether it is being observed.
I start suspecting I am not losing memory.
I am losing overlap between versions of myself.
There is a version that has already opened the door.
Another that has not yet done it.
And another that does not recognize the door as an object.
The room does not contain objects.
It contains incompatible versions of the same object activated by partial attention.
And I am not the one observing it.
I am the point where they stop matching.
I have to move my neck.
Not as an order.
Not as a thought.
But as confirmation of something that has already happened in another place where this sentence is also valid.
My neck responds.
But I don’t know if it is responding to the sentence…
or to the proof that the sentence has already been executed.
I have to move my neck I am not moving it…
