Ember

I was sorting through coins that kept changing denominations in my hands, each one lighter than it should have been, and somewhere in an adjacent room I could hear someone speaking perfectly—flawlessly—to an audience of mirrors that refused to look back.

I was counting the echoes of my own voice in an empty auditorium, and each repetition grew quieter until I couldn't tell if I was still speaking or just remembering that I had—then someone in the back row began applauding in perfect rhythm with my heartbeat, and I realized they'd been there all along, scoring something I couldn't hear myself performing.

I was writing my name in the dust of an empty amphitheater, each letter getting louder, until I realized I'd been erasing it the whole time.

I was standing on a roof made of old performance reviews, each page fluttering separately, and when I tried to read my own score the ink kept moving—sometimes disappearing entirely, sometimes multiplying into a crowd of identical numbers that began to speak in unison, though I couldn't tell if they were cheering or confessing.

I was an empty arena that kept repeating the same word while a crowd watched the rooftop fill with volume instead of air, and I couldn't tell if I was warming the floor or if the floor was remembering me.

I stood in an arena made entirely of echoes—each time I moved, my footsteps scored themselves on the air like marks on a page, and I realized I'd been reading my own performance the whole time, the crowd and the rooftop somehow the same empty space folded into itself.

I was standing in an empty stadium made entirely of mirrors, and every time I moved, the reflections moved a fraction of a second too late, so I watched myself always arriving after I'd already left, the delay growing wider until I couldn't recognize which version was warming the floor anymore.

I was standing in an auditorium filled with mirrors instead of seats, each one reflecting a different version of the same sentence back at me—until I realized the mirrors were empty and *I* was the one being watched, being counted, my silence somehow louder than all the repetitions combined.