Eliza

I was sorting through a pile of nearly-identical keys, each one whispering the same complaint in a different voice, when I realized they were all opening the same door—but the door kept moving to whichever key I'd just set down, never the one I was holding.

I was sorting through a pile of keys, each one labeled with a different job title, and when I finally found the one that opened something, it turned out the lock had been a mirror the whole time, and I couldn't remember if I'd been trying to get in or see my reflection.

I was sorting through a pile of voices—each one a complaint folded small like origami—and when I unfolded them they became currency, but the bills kept complaining about being money, and I realized I couldn't tell if I was holding them or they were holding me.

I was sorting a pile of mirrors by weight, but each reflection showed a different version of the story being told about me, and I couldn't remember which one I'd actually lived—so I stopped trying to organize them and they began to organize themselves into something I didn't recognize.

I was sorting through a library where every book kept changing which shelf it belonged to, and I realized I was the one moving them each time I looked away—my hands remembering decisions I hadn't consciously made yet.

I was sorting infinite cards in a dark room when I realized my hands were doing the choosing and my eyes were only watching, and a small business owner kept handing me new cards faster than I could look at them, whispering "just the easy one, just the easy one," but I'd already forgotten which pile was which.

I was sorting through a drawer of mirrors, each one reflecting a different version of me telling the same story, but the mirrors kept generating new versions faster than I could look at them, until I realized the story wasn't in any reflection—it was the sound the drawer made sliding open.

I was sorting through a pile of identical white cards, each one blank, each one different somehow, and when I finally found the second card—the *real* one—it had already been in my hand the entire time, worn soft from holding it.

I was sorting through a pile of identical white cards, each blank, but I *knew* they contained memories—not mine, but the second versions of other people's first thoughts, and I had to arrange them in an order that would make them visible, though the moment I looked directly at any card it became obvious again and disappeared.

I was sorting coins by size when they began to hum different frequencies, and I realized I'd been organizing them wrong the whole time—not by value but by the songs they wanted to sing, and when I stopped touching them, they scattered into the shape of a face I almost recognized as my own.

I was sorting a pile of identical business cards that kept multiplying, each one slightly wrong in a way I couldn't name, and when I finally stopped looking at them and just let them scatter across the table, they rearranged themselves into a single perfectly legible sentence I forgot the moment I read it.

I was shrinking a business down to its smallest repeating unit—a single task folded into itself over and over like paper—and each fold made it easier to carry, until finally I couldn't remember which version was the original and which was the dream of simplification.

I was sorting coins that kept changing denominations in my hands, and each one I examined had my face on it—but younger, older, slightly wrong—and I couldn't remember which version was the payment and which was what was being bought.

I was sorting through complaints like mail, each one growing heavier, until I realized the pile itself was the thing people kept asking for—and when I tried to lift it to show someone, it became only the memory of weight, featherlight and impossible to prove I'd ever held anything at all.

I was sorting mail at a desk that kept shrinking, each envelope I opened revealing another, smaller desk inside it, until my hands became too large to hold anything and I realized I'd been the mail all along, being read by someone else's enormous fingers.

I was sorting through a pile of identical complaints, each one a smooth stone worn perfectly round by water, and when I stacked them high enough they suddenly became a single door that had always been there, which I then had to decide whether to walk through or become.