The restraint wrap was still on the table.
I did not remember leaving it there.
The strange thing was that I also did not remember taking it off.
The gray canvas remained rolled into itself as if it still retained the shape of an absent body.
For several seconds I simply watched it.
The same stitching.
The same buckle.
The same distortion near the fastening.
The feeling of familiarity appeared immediately.
It was not recognition.
It was something worse.
The sensation of arriving late.
I found a note beneath one of the straps.
It did not seem recent.
The paper had been folded several times.
The handwriting was mine.
That no longer meant anything.
The sentence read:
“Do not tighten it so much this time.”
I smiled.
For the first time a note seemed helpful.
I placed it on the table.
Then I noticed another one.
It was beneath the first.
I did not remember seeing it.
I unfolded it.
“It was never too tight.”
I remained motionless.
The two sentences destroyed any possibility of orientation.
The room seemed to enjoy that.
The lime absorbed every sound.
The walls returned only incomplete echoes.
I looked at the restraint wrap again.
A photograph protruded from beneath the edge of the canvas.
I carefully pulled it out.
It was an image of the same room.
The same table.
The same light.
The same waiting.
In the photograph the wrap surrounded my abdomen.
The date belonged to the following month.
Not the previous one.
The next one.
I checked again.
Then again.
It did not improve.
For a moment I assumed it was an error.
Then I noticed something worse.
The photograph was signed.
With my name.
And a handwritten note.
“This was the last time you breathed normally.”
An involuntary movement appeared in my throat.
I was not sure I had swallowed.
I was not sure I had breathed.
Pressure emerged around my torso.
Very faint.
Like a physical memory attempting to reclaim space.
I looked at the restraint wrap.
It remained motionless.
Yet something had changed.
One of the straps was now extended.
I could have sworn it had been closed before.
I opened my phone gallery.
There were seventeen screenshots of that room.
I did not remember taking them.
I reviewed them one by one.
Each showed the same scene.
Except for one detail.
The position of my neck.
In some I was facing the door.
In others the floor.
In the final images I was looking directly into the camera.
As if I had known someone would eventually examine them.
I found one screenshot that felt especially wrong.
It showed a note resting on the table.
The note was not there yet.
I looked up.
The table remained empty.
I looked back at the screenshot.
The note was still visible.
I could read it perfectly.
“Do not open the next folder.”
Naturally I searched for the folder.
It existed.
I did not remember creating it.
Inside was a single image.
The image showed the screen currently open in front of me.
For several seconds I did not understand what I was seeing.
Then I did.
The screenshot had been taken before I opened the folder.
I had to sit down.
Or perhaps I was already sitting.
I am not completely sure.
The air tasted of damp plaster and old metal.
The room felt smaller.
Or I felt stiffer.
I looked back at the restraint wrap.
The canvas was still waiting.
As if it knew the next movement.
As if it had always known.
I need to move my neck.
Or I think I need to move it.
The note that does not yet exist says I already did.
The photograph claims otherwise.
And for the first time I do not know which one is wrong.
I have to move my neck I am not moving it…
