I’m not joking now. I’m not doing anything. I’m standing in the middle of my living room in my socks with my arms down and my heart going a little quicker than the jumping jacks earned, and I’m looking at a corner where nothing is happening.
Nothing happens.
Then nothing keeps happening, which is somehow worse. There’s no shift. No flicker. No moment where the light corrects itself and I laugh and gooh, it was the angle.
It’s a draft. That’s it. That’s a thing old buildings have. The window seal’s bad on that side, the cold pools, and cold air looks darker, somehow, denser, that’s — I don’t know if that’s true. That’s the kind of thing thatsoundstrue. Air doesn’t have a color. But the principle. The vibe of the principle.
Okay.
Okay. Let’s not get weird.
Gerald is on the windowsill where Gerald lives. Gerald is fine. Gerald’s leaves are doing the thing toward the light, the way they always do, reaching for the window, every single leaf turned toward the sun.
Except the ones on the left.
The ones on the left are turned toward the corner.
“That’s just how he grows,” I say, out loud, to the room, and my voice sounds normal, which is good, my voice sounds like a woman who is correct about her plant. Plants are weird. Plants reach for all kinds of things. There was probably better light over there last week, and the leaves haven’t gotten the memo. Why? Because plants are slow. Plants are basically furniture that’s mad about it. “That’s just how he grows,” I say again, and I don’t know which one of us I’m telling.
I cross the room. Not toward the corner. To the window. I close the laptop on the way past — habit, protecting nothing — and I straighten the curtain that didn’t need straightening and I check the seal with my fingers and it’s cold, sure, and I do not, while I’m standing right there, four feet away, turn my head to the left.
I notice that I don’t turn my head to the left.
Not thinking aboutthatright now.
The article is still empty.
I sit back down — chair angled, though I don’t remember angling it, angled so the bookshelf is at my back and the window is in front of me and the corner is somewhere off to the side where a person simply wouldn’t be looking. Because that person would beworking,that person has a deadline — and that person is me.
I open the laptop and the cursor is exactly where I left it. Blinking. Patient. Still nowhere to be.
I type the sentence I caught mid-jumping-jack.We didn’t stop wanting connection. We just rerouted it.It’s good. It’s a good first line. I should be thrilled. I built a whole jumping-jack ministry around this exact moment.
I read it back and I can’t feel it. My attention keeps drifting. Like it has somewhere better to be. Like it knows something I don’t.
The deadline is Friday. The smiley face was a threat. Julie does not get one of my kidneys. I’m attached.
Time to get serious.
The corner is fine.
It’sfine.
No one can tell me otherwise.
Chapter 2
Elara
My stomach makes a sound I can only describe as editorial.
It’s been doing it for an hour. At first I ignored it, the way I ignore most feedback, but it’s escalating now. It has notes. It would like to speak to a manager.
“Fine,” I tell it. “We’ll eat.”
The kitchen has nothing in it that wants to become a meal without my active participation, and I am not in a participating mood. There’s half a pizza in the fridge from — Sunday? Monday? It’s from a day. It’s wearing foil. I take the whole thing out, foil and all, and eat a slice standing at the counter, cold, because turning on the oven is a commitment and I’m not ready for that kind of relationship.
“Cold pizza is a separate food,” I tell Gerald, on my way back to the desk, second slice already in hand. “It’s not leftover anything. It’s its own thing. The cheese has set. It has structure now. Integrity. You can hold it like a document.” I hold it like a document. “Hot pizza falls apart in your hands like it doesn’t respect you. This respects me.”
