There was a knock at the door today, which is already a serious event, and then a second knock right after it, which is not how anyone in this house knocks, and so before the door had even opened I understood we were dealing with an outsider. I took up a position under the console … Read more
I want it on record that I was awake first. I am always awake first, technically, in the sense that I never fully stop being awake, but this morning I was awake in the specific, aggrieved way of someone who has been personally wronged before the sun has even finished coming up. The alarm went … Read more
I want it on the record that I did not object to the candle itself. I objected to what it was doing. There is a difference, and I intend to explain it slowly, because I suspect no one in this house has fully appreciated the scope of the problem. She brought it home in a … Read more
There is a spider in my window today, and I want it on record that I did not invite it. I found it this morning in the usual way I find everything important, which is by nearly walking face-first into it. The windowsill in the back room is mine. It has been mine since before … Read more
I want it on record that I heard them before she did anything about it. A voice, male, unfamiliar, coming from somewhere in the vicinity of the kitchen table where she’d set up her laptop, laughing at something in a way that suggested he found himself very charming. I was on the floor at the … Read more
She brought out the black bag on a Thursday evening, the crinkly kind that lives folded up under the sink next to the dustpan, and I want it noted for the record that I did not like the sound of it from the very first crinkle. That bag has never once, in my experience, contained … Read more
It came in sometime after the lamp went off, which is exactly the kind of cowardice I would expect from something with no bones. I heard it before I saw it — that specific dry, papery tick against the lampshade, once, twice, then nothing, which is worse than the sound itself because it means the … Read more
I want it on record that I was not consulted. The reading chair — mine, functionally, though she sits in it sometimes when I allow it — has been moved. Not far. Perhaps the width of three of my own body-lengths, which I recognize is not a great distance to some, but to me it … Read more
I want it on record that I was not hiding under the bed. I was conducting a perimeter check from a low, tactically superior position. There is a difference, and I resent that no one in this house seems willing to acknowledge it. It started with the light going strange. I noticed it before she … Read more
Something was wrong with her today and I want it on the record that I noticed immediately, before the sighing even started, back when she was still just standing at the counter holding her phone like it had personally disappointed her. I have a very good nose for the ordinary chemistry of the house — … Read more
