The Incident
The Incident
The glass on the table. Not broken. Not empty. Just there.
The light through it is the only thing that moves.
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The chair against the wall. Not pushed in. Not pulled out. Just there.
Someone was sitting in it. Now they're not.
The chair doesn't know the difference.
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The door that was open. Now it's closed. Not slammed. Not locked. Just closed.
The air in the room is still settling.
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The clock on the shelf. It stopped at 4:17. Not wound down. Not broken. Just stopped.
The time it holds is the time it was.
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The mark on the floor. Not a scratch. Not a stain. Just a mark.
The floor doesn't remember how it got there. The floor only holds.
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The window that was a window. Now it's a mirror. Not because the glass changed. Because the light did.
The room sees itself for the first time.
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The object on the table. Not the glass. Not the clock. Something else. Something that wasn't there before.
The room doesn't know what it is. The room only knows it wasn't there.
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The silence after. Not the silence before. The silence after.
The room is different now. Not because anything moved. Because something happened.
The room will never be the room it was. The room doesn't know that yet.