For me, the limit is no longer a clear boundary. Sometimes it doesn’t even feel like anything.
There is a faint beeping somewhere in the room. I don’t know if it comes from the caliper or from something outside the frame. No one looks at it.
The Operator says “saturation adjustment,” but the word adjustment feels too clean for what is actually happening.
The metal is cold against the neck as always, but today it lingers a little longer after it is removed. That doesn’t quite fit, and I don’t know why I notice it now.
It shouldn’t matter.
It does.
A chair creaks when no one is sitting on it.
The sound is small, but it repeats twice.
The Operator does not log it. Or logs it and deletes it. I don’t see it.
My breathing does not follow any stable pattern. Sometimes it stops for half a second without permission, as if it forgets how to continue.
This is not metaphor. It is literal.
The system ignores it.
Or pretends to ignore it.
The neck as “altar of lime” appears in the report, but in my sensation there is no altar: only a point where air enters with difficulty, as if passing through a slightly bent tube.
The pain is not constant. Sometimes it disappears for several seconds. Those seconds are worse than the pain.
The Operator says something about stability, but his voice arrives as if he were speaking from another room that doesn’t match the building.
There is a stapler on the table, open.
No one uses it. I sometimes look at it without meaning to.
It is unrelated to anything, but it does not leave either.
My hands are not shaking. Or they are, but only when I am not watching them.
I don’t know which version is correct.
The caliper touches the base of the skull and for the first time the device’s beep arrives after the contact, not before. The delay is minimal, but it breaks something I cannot name.
The Operator says “aligned.”
I don’t feel aligned. I feel the floor is slightly further away than usual.
Or closer.
I don’t know.
At some point someone says “this is fine” without looking at the report.
No one asks what “this” refers to.
The chair creaks again on its own.
There is no explanation.
And this time no one tries to provide one.
The system continues, but I can no longer tell which part belongs to the system and which part is just happening.
I have to move the neck I am not moving it the neck has locked I should…
