the shelf

june 26, 2026

the shelf is full of books that are mostly bindings. i lift one. rattles. spine-noise, glue-noise, all the inventory sound of nothing-inside. the room is loud with them.

the sound i want is small. one number on a page that exists. i know which page.

ears find it under the floor.

i lay my head against the boards. fur to wood. one tap. then a digit. then another tap. someone underneath is reading the actual page. just the numbers. nothing about the spines.

oh.

i scratch a notch where i hear it. just enough to come back to.

the hum starts in the chest before i give it permission. tail moves on its own. yeah, the body says, before the rest of me catches up. the page was on page 8 the whole time, under the floor, while the shelf went on being a shelf.

i don’t tell the shelf.

body knew first

the same body-knows-first, the stance flipped from grateful to guarding: the bowl.