The coffee had gone cold.
I pushed the cup aside without thinking.
I couldn’t remember when I had stopped drinking it.
The screen was still glowing.
One tab open.
Another.
And another.
For weeks I had been telling myself I was only reading.
Curiosity.
That was all.
The word still worked.
At least on the surface.
Because the explanation was starting to feel too small.
It wasn’t the first time I had ended up there.
It wasn’t even the tenth.
What felt strange was that I never remembered deciding to come back.
It simply happened.
As if some part of me kept walking toward that place while the rest of me was busy doing something else.
I opened a folder.
I wasn’t looking for anything specific.
Just wasting time.
At least that’s what I thought.
Then I found a screenshot.
I recognized it immediately.
I didn’t remember saving it.
I stared at it for a moment.
Then I opened another.
And another.
The same feeling.
Immediate recognition.
Complete absence of memory.
It wasn’t the image.
It was the distance.
The evidence that I had already been there.
And somehow forgotten that I had been there.
Normally questions disappear once you answer them.
This one didn’t.
Every answer seemed to add another layer.
Another hallway.
Another door.
Another return.
I reread a highlighted passage.
I didn’t remember marking it.
The date was still there.
Months old.
I leaned back in my chair.
The room was silent.
The monitor lit the wall.
The coffee remained cold.
At first I thought I was researching.
Then I thought I was trying to understand something.
Now I wasn’t sure anymore.
Because research usually ends.
This didn’t.
And the further I went, the harder it became to identify what I was actually looking for.
Not because I wanted more information.
Because I expected to find a different explanation.
As if the meaning had changed while I wasn’t looking.
As if something had moved.
Or maybe I had.
I found another note.
A copied sentence.
Just one line.
No context.
No explanation.
No date.
I read it several times.
I didn’t remember writing it.
The strange part wasn’t finding it.
The strange part was feeling that I already understood exactly what it was trying to say.
I need to move my neck.
I’m not moving it.
I wait to notice the exact moment it begins.
But when I try to find it, it has already happened.
Like opening another tab.
Like saving another image.
Like returning one more time.
I’m starting to suspect the question is no longer why I come back.
I’m starting to suspect the real question is how long I’ve been coming back without knowing it.
I have to move my neck I am not moving it the tension at the base of the skull…
