The Person in the Mirror Clocks Out Sometimes
The face is there, correct in every measurable way. Same geometry, eyes, and mouth arranged in the usual order, but the recognition that this face belongs to whoever is doing the looking has packed its things and left without notice, the way a word you have used a thousand times suddenly looks spelled wrong and refuses to look right again no matter how long you stare at it. Living inside the body during these periods feels like correspondence with someone who takes days to reply. The instruction to move arrives, movement eventually happens, but somewhere between intention and action there is distance that shouldn't exist, a lag in a connection that used to be seamless. The body is cooperative. It does what it's told. It simply no longer feels like home to whoever is giving the instructions. Other people remain unconvinced anything is wrong. They direct conversation at the face, receive appropriate responses from the voice and conclude a person is present. They are not entirel...