Something about missing the bus felt inevitable.
Perhaps our timing was always meant to slip.
Perhaps that vehicle — gleaming under a too-bright sky — was never truly ours to board.
The usual rescue — the elder with keys and quiet authority — did not come.
The light itself felt watchful, uneasy.
Without protest, the dream rearranged its scenery. A kitchen table we did not own. A house we had never signed ourselves into. Still, we sat as though it might slowly decide to claim us. One of the residents, hooded in irritation, mistook us for tenants and delivered his complaint without mercy. It was easier to let the misunderstanding breathe. There is a strange desire in being almost-seen.
Then came the others.
They entered as though summoned — young bodies swarming the living room, laughing, posing, smelling faintly of sweat and cologne, each carrying their own small storm of vanity. They did not acknowledge us directly, but they filled the air with heat and abandon. Something in their presence made the skin alert, wary, wanting.
Our friend appeared among them and the spell loosened — just slightly. Familiarity offered a fragile harbour. Yet with it came another pulse, deeper: a sensation of having already changed shape just to be there, watching.
Beneath the relief, a whisper moved:
Will you remain in this house that does not call your name…
or return to the one that did, even if it asks you to shrink into an earlier form?
Some dreams do not guide.
They stalk softly at your back.
They loosen a brick from the wall of certainty and wait to see which way you fall.
Notitia | attending to the hushed trespass of other people’s rooms, and the way longing wears its shadows like perfume
Notitia Health 
Leave a comment