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The lights go on, the lights go off. I stop, back lit in the kitchen window, lingering in the refrigerator glow. There but for the angle of the camera. The plotted paths of the assumed observer. The aggregation of the algorithms. A conspicuous crowd of shadows.

Here in the dark I disambiguate voice by voice. The speaking out of turn to the speaking out of choice. A darkened room with the story going. A stir of words halting down the sentence. The breath given without a thought.

We perform the rituals of the visible. We hit our marks and play these parts. The ordinary willed into the world by repetition. The illusion of motion in the way we all hold still. A flickering screen, the world outside seething with need.