You Stand in Your Living Room

You stand in your living room.  Cold grey morning light brushes the walls and furniture.  Windows - cracked, but not shattered - lay broken faded shadows on the environment.  The walls are quiet; even their chatter of white noise seems lacking.  You stand in your living room, unsure as to how you arrived or what you were doing before.

Carefully, slowly, you step forward, listening for the creak and bend of the wood under your weight.  You recall the texture of the floor beneath your feet.  The feeling of removing your socks to touch the cool floor on an otherwise hot summer day.  Again, another step and, again, another remembered groan.  A deep breath evokes dinners ordered from local restaurants, spiced holidays, and that certain stale air that came with ignoring chores for, perhaps, a little too long.

Something - though it is difficult to place - seems to be missing, or incorrect.  Perhaps a picture missing or out of place?  Or a pinot noir stain on the wall?  Maybe the reclining chair was in another corner?  Did you even own a reclining chair? 

The walls and floor lead your eye into the adjoining rooms, just as you remember, but still the layout is wrong.  As though it were bent or made of clay.  Your hand runs along an orange wall leading into the kitchen - a wall that you were certain was never there, and it returns to as it was.  As you move on, you feel that an amber cherry wood credenza has taken the wall's place.

The kitchen is clean - apart from the fractured (but still not broken) glass.  You place your finger in one of the larger water droplets still in the ivory sink.  Idly, you spread and draw the water across the basin as you rest upon the memory of pruned fingers coated in a thin film of soap.  You ride the thought forward, attempting to remember the events that lead you to this familiar yet distinctly different place.

To you standing in your living room.  Where the cold grey morning light brushes the walls and furniture through windows - cracked, but still not shattered - laying broken faded shadows on the environment.  The walls are quiet; even their white noise chatter seems lacking.  You stand in your living room, unsure as to how you arrived or what you were doing before.

                 

Carefully, slowly, you step forward, listening for the creak and bend of the wood beneath your feet.  You recall the texture of the floor.  The pleasant feeling of removing your socks and walking on the cool floor on hot summer days.  Again, another step and another remembered groan.  A deep breath evokes the smell of a once fresh coat of paint, a scented candle a friend gave to you, and the colorful souring of a floral bouquet that was ignored for, perhaps, a little too long.

                 

Something - though it is difficult to place - seems to be missing or incorrect.  As you turn to study the room, your hand brushes a book (which you do not own nor ever had) and it falls from the desk.  Or perhaps it was an amber cherry wood credenza?  The book opens as it ebbs; the suspended air and dust particles are captured between its pages.  The book continues to fall and fall and fall.

                 

Something pushes at the back of your mind, telling you to run, to leave before the book lands.  You turn to the door and the book falls.  Reaching out and taking hold of the handle - a handle which you remember to be different, and as though in response it corrects itself.  The book falls.  You twist and pull, and still the book falls.  The door opens to you.

                

 To you standing in your living room.  The cold grey morning light brushes the walls and furniture through cracked (but not shattered) windows, which lay broken faded shadows on the environment.  The walls are quiet of their normal white noise chatter - as though they had run out of things to say.  You stand in your living room, unsure as to how you arrived or what you were doing before.

                 

Stepping backward carefully, you listen for the strains of the wood beneath your weight.  The memory of sockless feet on the cold floor during a hot summer.  The air in your lungs recalls of homemade dinners, open windows just after an autumn rain, and the bite of fermented fruit that was left out for, perhaps, a little too long.

                

 An unfamiliar orange wall - which seems to correct itself as you remember what was in its place - leads your fingers to the bathroom.  As your attention falls onto the details of the room (a red flowered shower curtain, a black shag rug, peach blossom floor tiles), they recall what they once were and change appropriately.  But once fallen into your periphery, they again become incorrect in some new fashion.

                

 In the sink, you find a large drop of water has been idly played with (smeared and brushed across the bone white basin).  You look into the mirror.  The glass has been shocked into a spider web of countless pieces from an impact that came from nowhere.  An impact that was not physical, but still powerful enough to fracture your reflection.  Each unique version of yourself locked within its own boundaries.

                

 You take hold of a cadmium pen (or perhaps it was a rose marker or even some cherry lipstick).  You return to the living room and find an empty space on the wall next to a picture that bends as though made of clay.  With an easy swipe of your arm, you inscribe a red ‘X’ on the wall.  A message - if a simple one - to yourself.  That you are here.

                 

That you are standing in your living room.  A cold grey light brushes the walls and furniture through impacted (but not broken windows), casting faded shadows on the environment.  The walls are quiet; despite so often speaking in a white noise tongue.  You stand in your living room, unsure as to how you arrived or what you were doing before.