In the mechanism of technical domestication, the leash was never the problem.
That was the first thing I found written.
Not on a note.
Not inside a folder.
Directly on the wall.
The letters looked old.
The paint around them was cracked.
I ran my fingers across the surface.
Lime dust settled onto my nails.
The sentence continued a few inches lower.
The leash was never the problem. The problem was who pulled when nobody was there.
I stared at it for too long.
Then I looked toward the ring fixed into the wall.
Empty.
As always.
Or almost always.
Something felt wrong.
I could not remember whether I had seen it empty before.
The room seemed identical.
The same light.
The same temperature.
The same layer of dust across the floor.
But the chain that normally hung beside the ring was gone.
I could not remember removing it.
I could not remember seeing it disappear either.
I only remembered that it was supposed to be there.
The feeling was absurd.
Like remembering a scar that no longer exists.
I tried to reconstruct the sequence.
It did not work.
Every memory stopped at exactly the same point.
The wall.
The ring.
The absence.
I read the inscription again.
Then I noticed something I had missed.
Beneath the second line there was another sentence.
Smaller.
Almost erased.
Do not look behind you yet.
I read it twice.
Then a third time.
The feeling of familiarity arrived immediately.
Not because I remembered the sentence.
Because I remembered obeying it.
That was worse.
I turned anyway.
The room remained empty.
Or so I thought for a few seconds.
Then I noticed the opposite corner.
There was a chair.
A simple wooden chair.
I did not remember ever seeing it before.
The strange thing was not the chair.
The strange thing was recognizing it.
I knew exactly where every scratch was.
I knew which leg was uneven.
I knew what sound it would make if dragged across the floor.
And yet I was certain I had never seen it.
I approached it.
A folded sheet of paper rested on the seat.
My handwriting.
I recognized it immediately.
I did not need to verify it.
What unsettled me was something else.
The date.
The date was tomorrow.
I did not hesitate.
I did not assume it was a mistake.
I simply stared at it.
The way someone stares at an impossible face.
I opened the note.
There was only one sentence.
Next time do not forget the chair.
Beneath it appeared another.
Smaller.
You already forgot the chain.
I stood motionless.
For a few seconds I thought I heard a faint pull of leather.
Very soft.
Behind me.
The ring remained empty.
The wall remained still.
But the sensation persisted.
As though something had changed position while I was reading.
I tried to remember when the chain had disappeared.
I found no answer.
I found something worse.
A memory.
The chain had not disappeared.
I had removed it.
I remembered doing it perfectly.
What I could not remember was why.
I have to move my neck.
I think I have to move my neck.
The note was still in my hands.
I turned it over.
Something was written on the back.
I did not recognize the sentence.
Although I recognized the moment in which I was about to read it.
That was what made me drop the paper.
Because for a fraction of a second I became certain I had reached this exact point before.
The sentence read:
The chair was not here the first time either.
I have to move my neck I am not moving it…
