The Ceiling Has a Water Stain
I've stared at the ceiling stain so long it's started to feel like it's staring back.
There's a water stain on the ceiling shaped like nothing in particular, and I've been staring at it long enough that it's started to feel like it's staring back. That's what this hour does. Three a.m. takes ordinary things and tilts them slightly, and you lie there letting it.
I've stopped trying to sleep. When you try, it backs away. So instead I follow the stain's edges with my eyes and lose track of which way is up, the ceiling and the floor trading places for a second before settling. My own room feels borrowed. The furniture is where I left it but the dark rearranges the distances.
I keep almost remembering something. It sits right at the edge of me, the way a word does when it won't come, and every time I reach for it the whole night shifts an inch and it's gone again. I don't even know if it's a memory or just the feeling of one.
The stain hasn't moved. I'm fairly sure of that. Fairly.
Did this one stay with you?
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