New microfiction, because it is October.
A Second Ahead
I woke up already dressed. Shoes tied, teeth minty, clock reading 6:58, two minutes before my alarm. I live alone.
The next morning my coffee was poured. Still warm. My bag waited by the door with the umbrella I'd forgotten to pack.
Then the small things. Homework half-done in my handwriting, but neater. A text to my mom already sent, saying the thing I'd rehearsed for a week. The laundry folded. I never fold.
I don't have a ghost. I have something worse. It isn't coming into my day. It's already inside it, a half-step ahead, living it first.
Here's how I knew. I said a sentence out loud, and heard it answered, from the next room, my own voice, a beat before I said it.
I stopped sleeping to stay in front. It didn't work. Last night I heard myself crying through the wall. I wasn't crying. I was perfectly calm.
So I did the one thing it couldn't do first: nothing. I lay still and let the morning come without me. It got up, dressed, poured the coffee. Then it stopped. It can't do the day without me. It can only do it first.
It's 6:58. It's standing at the end of the bed in my shoes, waiting for me to move.
But you read that faster than I wrote it.
Didn't you.