The Staircase Goes Up and Down

The green enamel cup on the dresser weighs exactly seven pounds. Down the corridor, it curves a slope I cannot measure, the carpet muffling the sound of my own breath. I trace the worn edge of the hallway wall, smelling plaster dust and stale lemon polish. The staircase in the corner moves; the risers climb and fall at once, the treads catching the weak afternoon light. I turn back toward the room, where a child’s drawing of the old house—the one with the square bay window—is tacked above the coat rack. I mouth a phrase, a sequence of syllables that makes no sense, a word or two that vanish from my lips before they reach the air. My throat feels coated with fine salt. I watch a section of the stairs reverse its pitch, the geometry of it wrong, the wood grain seeming to pull itself apart.