The problem is not what happens in the mouth.
It is that the mouth appears in different places depending on where I look.
The first time I notice a metallic taste. It does not come from anything I have ingested. It arrives later, as if the room added it once I stopped paying attention.
There is a mug on the desk.
It wasn’t there before.
I am almost certain I used it.
When I get closer, the mug has a vertical crack.
In the mirror, it doesn’t.
In the mirror, the mug is intact. Full.
I cannot tell which version came first.
I move it off the desk.
The moment I lift it, the mug reappears in its place.
Full.
No transition.
As if it had never been in my hand.
I do not feel surprise.
I feel correction.
The air in the room thickens by one degree. Not as if the atmosphere changes, but as if the space decides what density is acceptable for each version of me.
I look for the crack again.
Now it is on the desk.
But it is also in the mirror.
Not in the same place.
Not in exactly the same shape.
But similar enough for both to claim origin.
I try to remember which one I saw first.
The moment I do, a third crack appears.
On the edge of the keyboard.
Perfectly aligned with my fingernail.
I do not remember touching it.
The keyboard does.
The keyboard retains pressure memory.
I look at my hands.
There is a faint white mark on my index finger.
As if I pressed against something harder than wood.
The mirror does not show it.
In the mirror, the hand is clean.
On the desk, the mark exists.
There is no way to decide which state is correct.
Only coexistence.
Then something smaller happens.
The mug disappears again.
Not moving.
Not falling.
Simply losing permission to remain in the same system.
The silence becomes more precise.
And the neck returns as an idea before it returns as a movement.
I have to move my neck.
The sentence does not arrive as thought.
It arrives as if it has already been executed elsewhere, and only its echo remains here.
I do not try to obey it.
I try to remember when it started.
There is no beginning.
Only instances.
I lift my eyes toward the mirror.
My reflection is already finishing the movement.
I have not yet begun.
And for the first time I notice something worse than distortion.
The reflection is not waiting for me.
It is arriving ahead of me, as if it already knows which version of me will be accepted.
The neck I am not moving it I should…
