She came into the living room holding something small and black between two fingers, the way you’d hold a bug you weren’t sure was dead yet, and said my name in the particular tone she uses right before something is about to happen to me that I haven’t agreed to. I have learned to recognize … Read more
She came in this afternoon carrying a paper bag with something heavy and round in the bottom of it, and I want it understood that I was there for the whole thing — the bag set down, the rustling, the moment she reached in and produced it and set it in the middle of the … Read more
There is a particular rectangle of floor near the baseboard in the living room, between the leg of the bookshelf and the edge of the rug, that has been mine on good mornings for as long as I can remember paying attention to such things. Today it did something I did not care for. It … Read more
The top of the refrigerator has been in my peripheral vision for weeks now. Not the side of it, which is nothing, a flat white wall I have no interest in, but the top, which I can only ever see from an angle, from the floor, looking up past the cabinets. There is a wicker … Read more
There were four extra shoes by the door before I even understood what was happening, and that should tell you everything about how prepared I was for this evening. Four shoes means two people, and two people is not nothing. One person arriving is an event. Two people arriving at once, within minutes of each … Read more
She moved the coffee table today. Not far — maybe two feet, enough to clear a rectangle of open floor in the living room — but far enough that it now sits half over the vent, which I consider a separate offense entirely and plan to address later. First things first. I needed to understand … Read more
There is a flat plastic container that lives under the bed, in the dead zone past where my paw can reach without real commitment, and until this afternoon I had made my peace with not knowing exactly what was in it. I assumed dust. I assumed the particular nothing that collects in places nobody goes. … Read more
I was asleep against her side, which is where I am most nights now, when the wall above the dresser lit up and something long and pale slid across it sideways, stretched itself tall against the corner, and then was gone before I had even finished sitting up. I want to be fair to myself … Read more
There is an order to things when she comes home. I did not invent this order, I only noticed it, the way a scholar notices a pattern in old texts nobody else bothered to read closely. Keys first, into the dish by the door, a small metallic clatter that means she has stopped moving forward … Read more
I came downstairs this morning to find my bowl had been replaced with an impostor, and nobody had thought to ask me first. The old bowl was deep and blue and had a small chip along the rim I’d long ago decided gave it character. It had been there, in that exact spot on the … Read more
