The room keeps its rules even when no one is inside it. The chair is pushed back just far enough to suggest use. A cup sits where a hand might return to it. Light presses against the window and stops. I notice the way dust settles without preference, how the clock does not hurry even when it is wrong. There is a list taped to the wall, corners curling, instructions written in a careful hand. I do not read them. I know what they say.

Something has been adjusted. Something has been left on. The air carries the faintest aftertaste of metal, or maybe it is only the imagination rehearsing. I stand longer than required, measuring nothing, waiting for a signal that does not come. When I leave, the room does not follow. It resumes its work of holding what has already happened.