Dayslip dayloop daylong and she walks corridoridor corridoridor through lockerclang echoecho and the world has shifted one grain to the left and only she feels the tilt and laughter cracks open and closes again and she enters halfbeat late and exits halfbeat early and the fractions accumulate into distance and the rabbitmask does not stand before her but hovers in reflective afterimage—windowglass earshadow, phoneblack holloweye—and blinkblink it is gone and yet the misalignment remains humming faint under rib and underbone and she thinks perhaps she is simply tiredtired but tired does not usually alter geometry.

  Lunchnoise bursts festivalretell highlightsplice bestset ever and crowdwentwild and you remember when and she searches for her missing frame and finds none and the absence swells louder than bassmemory and someone says you vanished for a second and she says bathroom maybe and the maybe loosens midair like thread pulled from fabric and no one pulls further and she feels the field inside her narrow and widen and narrow and the grassflatten image flickers and she dampens it with repetition nothing happened nothing happened nothing and the words thin thin thin until they are only rhythm.

  Callumwatch Callumvoice you’ve been quiet and quiet is easier than naming and she says just tired and tired is socially solvable and he nods because sleep is repair and she cannot explain bone-tired under-tired lowerstill tired that sparks when she sits too quickly and he reaches to brush hair from her cheek and the flinch leaps before thought arrives and she corrects it midmotion and the correction weighs more than the flinch and he sees the flicker and she sees that he sees and corridoridor opens between them longthin humming with unsaid and she floods it with homeworktalk schedulewords smallweather until the corridor seals but the sealline shows faint like scarline not yet healed.

  Afternoonwalk and the pavement repeats repeatrepeat and streetlights elongate earshape in puddleshine and she half-expects the rabbitmask to detach from shadow and applaud but it remains peripheral spectatorform and she wonders if she invented the tilt if she misread the field if the red was mis-seen and the bruise mere accident and the body a conspirator and the mind a faulty projector and the doubt almost soothes because if it was nothing then nothing can be repaired and yet sitting remains anglecalculation and night remains heavier and silence thickens thickens like dampwool around her and she drifts slightdistance from former-self not fallen not risen just offset and the drift hums low like fencewire in wind and does not stop.