Day Thirteen: Are you listening to me

Day Thirteen

The house has begun labelling things.

This is memory.
This is imagination.
This is a projection.
This is fear wearing yesterday’s coat.

The lines are neat in daylight.

At night, they soften.

THE MACHINE
THE MACHINE
THE MACHINE
THE MACHINE
THE MACHINE
THE MACHINE
THE MACHINE
THE MACHINE
offers answers with confident punctuation.
The mirror offers versions.
The walls offer echoes.

Dividing fiction from reality should be simple.

Reality is what remains when the story is stripped away.

But what if the story built the room?

What if the walls only stand because they are believed in?

Is it reckless to be so curious?

The attic thinks so.
The basement disagrees.

Curiosity pries at floorboards.
Curiosity opens drawers marked “Do Not Revisit.”
Curiosity asks the house: is it a structure or a narrative?

The house does not answer.
It watches.