Narrative: Don't Touch The Little Room...

Don't touch the little room. (Don't touch it.) I touched it. The miniature had my table. My lamp. The spoon I'd left beside the sink. Even the receipt I'd folded under the fruit bowl that morning. I leaned closer. The tiny lamp was on. Mine wasn't. So I reached in... and switched it off. Behind me, my real lamp clicked on. I didn't turn around immediately. I remember thinking that if I didn't look... maybe I could keep pretending I'd misunderstood something. (I understood.) Don't touch the little room. You already did. I tested small things. Nothing important. I moved the tiny spoon. The real spoon scraped across the counter. I opened the miniature drawer. My drawer opened behind me. I pushed the tiny table three centimeters toward the wall. My floorboards complained. The entire table moved. Three centimeters. Exactly. I laughed once. Not because it was funny. Because I suddenly understood how much of my apartment I could reach... without standing up. (Everything.) The next morning, the little room had changed. The tiny lamp had moved to the opposite side of the table. I hadn't done that. My real lamp... was already there. Then I noticed the miniature cabinet. The same cabinet I was kneeling in front of. Its bottom compartment was open. Inside it... another room. Smaller again. I couldn't see much. So I used my phone camera and zoomed in. There was another table. Another lamp. Another cabinet. And something on the table had been moved. Before I moved mine. (Who moved it?) Whatever I move... moves me. Whatever I move... moves me. I stopped touching it. For two days. The little room kept changing. A cushion rotated. Mine rotated. A drawer opened. Mine followed. The fruit bowl shifted left. Mine dragged itself across the laminate with a sound I felt in my teeth. I sat on the floor and watched. Then the tiny cabinet opened. Not slowly. Deliberately. Something inside the smaller room was reaching upward. I couldn't see a hand. There wasn't anyone there. Just objects... being tested. The way I'd tested mine. (I know what this is.) Whatever I move... moves me. Whatever moves me... is moving too. I backed away from the cabinet. The ceiling gave one short creak. Not from above. From... farther away. The lamp moved. I hadn't touched the miniature. The table moved. The miniature table hadn't moved either. Then the whole apartment shifted. Only slightly. Three centimeters. Exactly. And somewhere beyond the ceiling, wood scraped against wood. A drawer runner. Huge. Slow. Close enough that the walls flexed with it. That's when I understood why the little room had no miniature person. Why none of them did. We weren't missing. We were outside the scale that could see us. (Oh.) I haven't touched the cabinet since. I don't need to. This morning, my table moved again. Three centimeters. Then the lamp. Then me. I was standing beside the sink. Now I'm beside the cabinet. I didn't walk here. Something above me is arranging the room. And judging by the pauses... it's experimenting. Don't touch the little room. (Don't touch me.) Whatever I move... moves me.