The sediment of tension feels like the only trace that survives once the architecture of the design has finished occupying everything.
Or at least that’s what I think for a while.
Then I stop being so sure.
The bar is exactly where it was before.
The cuffs too.
Nothing has changed.
And yet the body keeps reorganizing things.
That is the strange part.
Not the stillness.
What comes after it.
The way muscles keep trying to negotiate with a position that is not going anywhere.
First there is pressure behind the knees.
Then it disappears.
A few minutes later it turns up somewhere else.
As if somebody were rearranging furniture in a dark room.
The metal on the left cuff feels slightly colder than the one on the right.
That makes no sense.
I know it makes no sense.
Still, I keep checking.
Again.
And again.
There is a tiny burr on the inside edge of one cuff.
I found it a long time ago.
Now I recognize it instantly.
I could find it blindfolded.
I assumed I would eventually stop noticing it.
The opposite happened.
The mechanism makes a short sound.
Very short.
Barely important.
But I spend the next few minutes waiting for it to happen again.
It doesn’t.
That bothers me more than it should.
The truth is that I start thinking about ridiculous things.
Whether I closed a drawer properly.
A word I can’t quite remember.
Why one leg feels heavier than the other when both are held exactly the same way.
I don’t know why I keep checking.
Nothing changes.
My neck starts bothering me.
Not dramatically.
It simply exists.
I try to correct my posture.
Then I realize I already corrected it a moment ago.
And before that as well.
It’s stupid, but I spend several minutes making microscopic adjustments that nobody else would ever notice.
The bar remains perfectly still.
I don’t.
Maybe that is what surprises me most.
I thought the experience would be about remaining motionless.
Instead it seems to be about watching all the things the body continues trying to do after it can no longer do them.
There is a mark on the wall near the floor.
I don’t remember when I started looking at it.
It looks like a pencil line.
Nothing special.
But every time I look away I end up searching for it again.
And again.
And again.
As if that small line is doing exactly what I am doing:
remaining where it is without ever fully accepting that it is remaining where it is.
The neck has locked I should…
