Camp Novmo 26: What You Called Living Was Mostly Narration

At first, you stayed with it the same way the animals did. You slept on the floor beside the bed. You beat your old analog clock over the head until it was a bloody pulp, until plastic teeth scatter across the carpet. You were human. You believed in rituals, in funerals. You spoke out loud, narrating small actions -- I’m opening the window, I’m making tea -- as if language could keep time from coagulating. You spoke aloud because silence felt like a second death, one far worse than the first.