I told no one what had occurred.
Not because I feared disbelief though disbelief was assured but because articulation would have granted the event a solidity I was not prepared to endure. As long as it remained unspoken, it could still be downgraded: a malfunction of perception, a neurological misfire, a moment of dissociation extended beyond propriety.
I returned home as though nothing had happened.
The remainder of the day arrived in disjointed pieces. Faces dissolved into one another. Conversations reached me late, if they reached me at all. I nodded when required, replied when addressed, executed the gestures expected of a person still acknowledged by the world.
Internally, the moment repeated itself with mechanical persistence.
The silence.
The arrest of motion.
The sensation of being waited upon.
By the time I closed my apartment door, my hands were trembling.
I remained there for some time, studying the dull metal surface as though it might contradict me by moving of its own accord. When it did not, I released a breath I had not realized I was restraining.
Compose yourself, I said aloud.
My voice sounded ordinary. That concession mattered.
I dropped my bag and began to pace, counting my steps without intention. Five to the window. Five back to the door. The apartment felt excessively quiet, even with the city murmuring beyond the glass an enforced stillness rather than peace.
I needed confirmation.
The realization lodged in my chest with uncomfortable gravity. Not curiosity necessity. I could not persist in ambiguity. Either the event had occurred, or it had not. Denial and proof were the only tolerable outcomes.
There was no middle ground.
I stopped at the center of the room.
Repeat it, I instructed myself.
Nothing responded.
Naturally. I did not even know what it was. I closed my eyes and attempted focus with the crude solemnity borrowed from films summoning the memory of silence, of suspended time, of the pressure behind my eyes.
The room remained obstinately mundane.
I opened my eyes and produced a brief, humorless laugh.
Of course.
I attempted again. I held my breath. Contracted every muscle. Concentrated until my temples throbbed.
Nothing.
With each passing second, the effort grew more pathetic. This, I realized, was how people dismantled themselves alone in enclosed spaces, demanding cooperation from a universe that had never made such promises.
I sank onto the edge of the bed.
The numbness returned, faithful and unwelcome. That familiar misalignment between myself and the world. The sense of inhabiting my body a fraction too late.
I stared at the floor without engagement.
Perhaps it functions only in absence, I thought.
Perhaps it requires indifference.
The idea arrived quietly, unannounced.
When I ceased attempting truly ceased, allowing my thoughts to drift into their habitual vacancy the air altered.
The change was minimal. Nearly deniable.
The refrigerator's hum faltered.
Once.
I lifted my head.
The sound resumed its steady rhythm, but my heart had already accelerated. I rose carefully, as though abrupt movement might invalidate whatever condition I had accidentally fulfilled.
One step forward.
Nothing.
Another.
The ceiling light flickered.
I froze.
The bulb emitted a faint buzz, its illumination wavering irregularly. I had not touched the switch. There was no storm, no rational interruption available for immediate use.
All right, I whispered. All right.
My pulse thundered. I focused inward—not on fear, not anticipation, but on that enduring emptiness, the internal quiet that had accompanied me for years. The absence. The void.
Reality tilted.
Not physically, but perceptually like an imperceptible adjustment to the angle of existence. Edges sharpened. Shadows deepened beyond their allowances.
The refrigerator fell silent.
The light stabilized.
Everything waited.
Pain detonated behind my eyes, sudden and violent. I gasped, clutching my skull as my knees buckled. The pressure was intolerable, as though something within me were pressing outward, testing the limits of containment.
I cried out.
And then it ended.
Sound returned. The room corrected itself. The ordinary reasserted its authority. I collapsed onto the bed, lungs burning, sweat cooling too quickly against my skin.
My vision swam.
I pressed my fingers beneath my nose and withdrew them crimson.
Blood.
A thin, undeniable line traced my upper lip.
I stared at it, breathing hard.
This exceeded imagination.
Hallucinations do not exact payment.
I wiped my face and laughed unsteadily, on the verge of fracture. The understanding settled heavily in my body, coiling into something uncomfortably adjacent to fear.
Whatever this was, it was not without cost.
I lay back and closed my eyes, exhaustion overtaking me with indecent speed. I felt depleted, as though I had expended something irretrievable without knowing its name.
As sleep claimed me, a final thought surfaced, precise and merciless.
If this can happen in isolation
What occurs when someone else is present to witness it?