There is a wrinkle in the corner of the sheet.
I do not know when I started looking at it.
I do not know why I keep doing it either.
The strap moves.
The wrinkle remains exactly the same.
I think.
The sound arrives before the impact. I always assumed they happened together, but they do not. There is a tiny interval between them. A strange space where the body tries to predict the future and fails every single time.
It still surprises me.
At first I thought the contact was the important part.
Now I am not sure.
What eventually occupies more space is the waiting.
The waiting reorganizes things.
Breathing shifts position.
Attention shifts position.
Even the weight of my own arms seems to redistribute itself without consulting me.
There is a small dark mark on the leather.
I notice it for a moment when the light changes.
Then it disappears.
Or perhaps it was never there.
I cannot verify it.
What remains is something harder to describe.
It is not exactly pain.
It is not exactly anticipation.
It exists somewhere in between.
Something that turns every sound into a question.
The body tries to answer.
Then it stops trying.
The impact arrives.
Then another.
Then another.
And little by little I discover a contradiction I cannot resolve.
I feel more aware of my body than ever before.
And at the same time I feel less ownership of it.
Both things are true.
Neither cancels the other.
Somewhere in the room a hanger taps lightly against the door whenever a current of air passes through.
The sound is tiny.
Almost ridiculous.
Yet I keep listening to it.
It participates in none of what is happening.
That is precisely why it becomes impossible to ignore.
There are moments when I become convinced a mark has changed shape.
Wider.
More defined.
When I look again I can no longer be certain.
The uncertainty lasts longer than the certainty.
And eventually I realize I am not inhabiting a sequence of impacts.
I am inhabiting the slow reorganization they leave behind.
The strap continues to move.
The hanger continues to tap against the door.
The wrinkle remains in the sheet.
And something inside me continues to shift, though I could no longer say exactly what.
I have to move the neck I am not moving it the neck has locked I should…
