There is a poorly stitched seam. I notice it because it always rubs the same point on my hip when I breathe.
It should not matter.
But it does.
The Operator says nothing. There is no need.
The strapping closes as if someone had decided my body is an object that needs to be corrected in silence.
And the worst part is that I understand the logic.
Not intellectually.
In the body.
There is a moment — very brief — when I try to shift my shoulder.
Not to escape.
Only to check whether I can still decide where my skin begins.
It does not work.
Not exactly.
The movement happens, but it arrives late, as if it has to pass through something before it becomes mine.
That thought annoys me.
It annoys me more that it is true.
The air feels different.
Not less air.
Just more aware.
As if every inhale has to ask permission from the volume surrounding me.
The strapping does not tighten evenly.
That is the strange part.
There are points where it disappears completely.
And others where it insists too much.
One of those points matches my left rib.
I discover it by accident when I laugh at something that was not funny.
The laugh cuts in half.
Not because of pain.
Because of adjustment.
As if the body corrected the sentence before I finished it.
I try to think of something else.
A glass of water on a table.
The hallway light left on all night.
An unread message.
Nothing stays.
Everything returns.
Always to the same place.
The Operator does not need to increase the pressure.
That is what unsettles me.
There is no escalation.
Only persistence.
And persistence, when precise enough, replaces force entirely.
I find myself counting meaningless things.
How many times I blink.
How long it takes for the heartbeat to return to the same point.
Whether my tongue touches my palate in the same place every time.
I do not know why I do that.
It does not help.
But I cannot stop.
And then something worse happens.
I begin to adapt.
Not as a decision.
As a habit.
The body finds more efficient positions inside what is left allowed.
The shoulder drops half a centimeter.
The jaw settles as if it had always belonged there.
I notice too late.
Too late.
I am the one who has reshaped inside it.
And for a ridiculous moment I think:
“This is comfortable.”
And I am afraid of having thought it.
The neck I am not moving it the neck has locked I should…
