A Kind Of Madness Dthrip -

And then I'll start again.

The rug has no wrinkles. I checked. Twice. a kind of madness dthrip

By Dthrip The first time I noticed it, I was buttering toast. The butter was too cold. The knife caught a crumb. The crumb fell onto the linoleum. I stared at that crumb for seventeen seconds. Not because I was counting. But because something behind my eyes had begun to count everything. And then I'll start again

My neighbor, Mrs. Kellaway, knocked this morning. She wanted sugar. I opened the door holding a measuring tape. She didn't ask why. People don't ask why anymore. They've learned that the answer is either boring or terrifying. I gave her the sugar, then closed the door and measured the distance from the handle to the strike plate. 2.4 centimeters. It was 2.4 centimeters yesterday, too. I measured anyway. The knife caught a crumb

That is the kind of madness I mean: the kind that looks like diligence. The kind that wears a collared shirt and pays its bills on time and never misses a dental appointment. The kind that smiles at the pharmacist and says, "Just the usual," while inside, a tiny, furious god is rearranging the vowels in the word refrigerator to see if it spells anything ominous.

The madness is that I will spend the next hour trying to figure out which one to remove.

And then I'll put it back.