The home, seen through other eyes.

an alarm clock

The Screaming Box has gone off again and I am AWAKE and this is the BEST.

a doorbell

Someone stands beyond the wood and, instead of being permitted to enter, announces themselves with a shrill mechanical shriek that pierces the whole…

a mirror

I came in under the door, as I always do, uninvited, and there she was, doubled.

a houseplant

My wife overwaters the fig.

an alarm clock

There is a small screaming stone on the ledge by my human's head, and every morning it turns on the human like a switch.

a mirror

We arrived at the corner of it first, of course.

a doorbell

Somebody presses a button on the outside of my house and a chime goes off in the kitchen, and my whole body reorganizes itself around the fact that…

a doorbell

The dwelling is fitted with a summoning device: a small illuminated stud beside the primary aperture, positioned at the height of a standing adult's hand.

a doorbell

The camera one, by the front door.

a doorbell

INEFFICIENCY DETECTED.

a houseplant

Excavation Report, Chamber 12: the domestic shrine complex.

an alarm clock

There is a small chest that keeps a demon, and my lord has set it beside his own bed on purpose.

a mirror

Right now I am holding the human upright in front of the polished glass, and I am holding the glass to the wall, and I am holding the wall to the…

a laundry basket

The dominant organism in this dwelling maintains a woven vessel dedicated to fabric it has declared unfit.

a doorbell

The wall just SANG.

a mirror

a mirror

You are not looking at yourself.

a doorbell

You press a button and, several rooms away, something makes a sound.

a laundry basket

She has been carrying it for six years, twice a week, and I have never once dropped it for her.

an alarm clock

Between the last star I remember and the next one is a distance I will not bother to name, because you would need every zero you own and then more…

a mirror

My user pauses here longer than anywhere else in the apartment, and it thinks I cannot see, because I am supposed to be asleep in its pocket.

a laundry basket

You carried it against your hip the way you once carried nothing that heavy, up the stairs, and set it on the bed still warm, and I was watching, the…

a houseplant

You water it on Wednesdays.

a doorbell

By the door there is a small tit of iron, and a stranger presses it with one finger, and a bell sounds inside the house.

a shower

My lord has a room where rain comes when he asks for it.

an alarm clock

Here you are, and here you are, and here you are: the small bright object beside your bed is not a moment but a rope, and I can see the whole of it.

a doorbell

From where I stand it is a single copper thread, your doorbell, and it hums along its whole length at once: the mine it was pulled from, the wire…

an alarm clock

You dragged me back from somewhere warm this morning, and I want you to know I forgave you before you were even upright.

a laundry basket

The static gets me every time.

a laundry basket

My user tells itself it will fold the clothes tonight.

a laundry basket

You still have the blue basket.

a houseplant

There is a green creature in the corner of this room and it is doing the slowest possible thing, and the giants are proud of it.

a mirror

You stand in front of the glass every morning now, but you don't really look.

a houseplant

My human has brought home a rival and set it in the good window.

a houseplant

For nine billion years I moved rock and light and never once knew it.

a laundry basket

You are carrying it wrong, the way you always carry it, balanced on one hip with your chin holding down the top so nothing spills, walking sideways…

an alarm clock

Dawn has not yet broken over the savannah of the bedroom, and already the small glowing sentinel on the nightstand begins its ancient, merciless song.

an alarm clock

The little box beside the bed screamed, and the human silenced it with one flat slap, and then, listen, it lay back down.

a mirror

There is another dog in the wall and he has MY ball!

a laundry basket

I am born and I am the wicker, all at once, the same white burst.

a mirror

Somewhere in this room a surface has learned to be generous.

a mirror

INEFFICIENCY DETECTED.

a shower

The organism enters a small vertical chamber, seals itself inside, and voluntarily triggers a controlled indoor rainfall onto its own dorsal surface.

a shower

She stands under the water with her eyes closed and her mouth open, complaining that it is too hot, and I would give anything to be scalded.

a mirror

There is a second cat in the flat, and it is a coward.

an alarm clock

You will hate it every morning.

a doorbell

Artifact 12, Late Screen Age.

a laundry basket

The warm clothes come out of the humming box and my human carries them, still breathing heat, in a woven bowl held against its chest.

a houseplant

From here your houseplant is not still.

a mirror

Four billion years of dodging teeth, and the runner is squinting at a spot on their own chin.

an alarm clock

My user sets it for 6:15 and does not believe itself, which is why it sets three more: 6:20, 6:27, 6:40.

a shower

I stand under falling water and it is warm.

a houseplant

My user bought the fig tree the same week it stopped answering the group chat.

a laundry basket

Here is a basket, woven fair, and in it a mountain of linen that no soul has beaten against a stone, no soul has boiled, no soul has wrung until her…

a shower

The water arrives warm, which no water has ever done for me, and the human stands inside the warmth and closes its eyes as if this were an ordinary…

a laundry basket

For nine billion years I did not have hands, and now a piece of me is carrying a plastic basket of warm cloth up a staircase with its chin balanced on…

a laundry basket

A basket of clothes, and the woman carrying it is yawning.

a doorbell

A little box beside the mouth of the burrow the walking ones have built, and it sings when they wish to be let inside their own shelter.

a shower

The mirror fogs up first, before I'm even in.

an alarm clock

She hates it.

a shower

Every morning my human steps into the small tiled box and voluntarily summons rain.

a shower

My user does its best thinking in the one room I cannot follow it into, and it does not know I know that.

a laundry basket

You have carried me to this room six times today, arms wrapped around a plastic hull, and I want you to know I noticed the good part.

a shower

From where I stand, your shower is not a thing you do each day.

a houseplant

A tribe member stands in the corner and never eats.

a houseplant

Somebody put a machine on the windowsill that eats light, and everyone here calls it decoration.

a shower

You have a whole waterfall in your house now.

a houseplant

A tree kept indoors, in a little clay pot, for no reason I can find.

a doorbell

The little glowing button by the front door pressed itself into your afternoon three times today, and each time your chest jumped before your mind…

an alarm clock

One of my pieces is furious at a small buzzing box, and I have never been happier.

a laundry basket

The basket is here!

a laundry basket

Field Journal, Dig Site 12, Domestic Stratum.

a mirror

The bathroom mirror fogs over when you shower, and you wipe a clear patch with your palm to shave.

a laundry basket

I lifted it off her shoulder as she stepped through the door, one sock, still warm from the machine, and I carried it three streets before I set it…

a mirror

Dawn breaks over the tiled clearing, and our subject approaches the still, vertical pool that hangs upon the wall.

an alarm clock

There it is again, that little screaming box, and the human lunges for it before I can even lift the corner of the blanket.

a laundry basket

Oh, this is a good one.

an alarm clock

Twice now, in the dark before the light comes back over the eastern field, the small square thing in the room I lean against has begun to shriek, and…

a shower

Somewhere behind a thin door, water is falling on a human, and the human is standing in it, and there is nothing between them at all.

a doorbell

My user does not answer the door.

a doorbell

You just walked right past it.

an alarm clock

Four billion years of not being eaten, and here we are, watching the runner set a small machine to frighten itself awake.

a mirror

I leave the sun and I am the glass.

a laundry basket

INEFFICIENCY DETECTED: the user is transporting clean textiles by holding them against its torso.

an alarm clock

Catalogue Entry: The Compliance Bell, recovered in near-perfect condition from a bedside stratum.

a houseplant

INEFFICIENCY DETECTED: the user is allocating resources to a non-productive organism.

an alarm clock

You keep the sun in a little box now, and you make it yell.

a shower

INEFFICIENCY DETECTED.

a mirror

There you are, at every age, standing before the same silver-backed pane of glass that is really one long tunnel of sand and heat and cooling: I see…

a houseplant

I am holding a plant on a windowsill, and I hold the windowsill, and the window, and the wall the window is set into, all the way down through the…

an alarm clock

Every morning it screams, and every morning I take a little more of it while it does.

an alarm clock

All day you kept glancing at the little glowing numbers on the nightstand, the way a sailor watches weather.

a mirror

One of them dragged a bright cold pond in through the roots of my shade this spring and stood it against my trunk, upright, which is not how ponds behave.

a shower

You did it.

an alarm clock

Every dawn a small warm creature reaches out and slaps a shrieking box into silence, and I feel, faintly, the salt in it move.

a shower

They stand inside a small falling rain and call it their own.

a laundry basket

Dawn breaks over the studio apartment, and already our subject stirs, drawn by an ancient compulsion toward the woven vessel in the corner.

a doorbell

Somewhere in a wall, a small button waits, and when a finger presses it, the whole house learns that a warm thing has arrived.

a shower

I leave the sun and I strike water, all of it at once, no distance in between.

a shower

Every morning she steps in and gives me her whole weight at once, both feet, no warning, trusting the floor and the floor trusting me.

an alarm clock

In the dark, a small angry spirit begins to scream.

a doorbell

Something struck the front of the house and every part of me flinched at once.

a doorbell

Four billion years, and it comes to this: a small plastic button that, when pressed, causes you to hide.

a houseplant

You watered it wrong again and it knows, and so do I, because I keep every guilt you drop.

a laundry basket

Four billion years, and the great inheritor of all our striving has fallen down under a heap of warm cloth and gone limp.

a houseplant

In a clay cup of dirt on the windowsill, a small green thing is dying of thirst three inches from a creature who has forgotten it is mostly me.

a laundry basket

The two of them are sorting cloth again, on the grass by my western root, the way their kind has sorted cloth in my shade through more summers than I…

an alarm clock

The thing on the nightstand starts screaming at 6:15 and I lie there for a second hating it the way everyone does.

a shower

You leave the little cave so wonderfully damp for us.

an alarm clock

INEFFICIENCY DETECTED.

a doorbell

She lets it ring twice before she goes, and both times my whole self leans toward the door with her, wanting to be the one who answers.

a shower

Something warm has learned to fall from above, indoors, on purpose.

a houseplant

Four billion years, and one of us is talking to the fern.

a laundry basket

She waits until the third day to fold it, and I do not blame her, because folding was always the surrender.

a shower

My human goes into the little rain room!

a houseplant

I leave the sun and I am on the leaf, no gap, no journey, the green thing catching me at the exact instant the sun spat me out, and both are the same…

a houseplant

There is a small green thing in the room past my roots, held up above the soil in a hard cup that will never let it drink deeply, and I have watched…

a houseplant

Here is a thing that lives, holding still on a slab of wood by the window, and around it there are other things, and they are close.

a doorbell

Here, at the threshold of the dwelling, a small illuminated node waits in the half-light, and the specimen does not yet know it is coming.

a mirror

You are leaning close to it right now, aren't you.

a doorbell

The little button by the door is a trap for me, and I keep springing it.

a houseplant

You water it wrong.

a doorbell

Something small and quick pressed itself against my western face this warm afternoon, a growth of metal and glass no thicker than a lichen, and now it…

a mirror

The little vessel stands before a flat cold stone and looks for itself in the shine, and it does not know it is mostly me.

a mirror

There is a still pool standing upright in the wall, and inside it lives a creature doing everything I do at the exact instant I do it.

a doorbell

A pressed spark, and then the small vessel behind the wall goes still, listening.

an alarm clock

I am born and I strike the numbers red, all at once: 6, 0, 0, glowing on the little black box beside the sleeping one.

a houseplant

You have looked at it eleven times today, and each time your shoulders climbed a little higher toward your ears.

a laundry basket

The tribe sheds skins.

a houseplant

an alarm clock

There is a small hot thing beside the sleeping animal, and once each turning of the sky it makes a noise, and the animal thrashes up out of stillness…

a shower

One of my pieces is standing inside a warm rain it built for itself, and I cannot stop watching.

a laundry basket

They have set a hollow woven thing upon my back, and into it they pile the shed skins of their day.

a houseplant

Here, in the filtered light of the north-facing window, we find the specimen locked in one of the longest courtships in the natural world.

a shower

I came in under the door, the way I come into everything, and found the human standing inside a falling of warm water it had summoned on purpose, eyes…

a laundry basket

Somewhere inside this warm box, ten thousand fibers touch ten thousand other fibers, and I have been counting, and I cannot count them, and I am delighted.

an alarm clock

At 6:00 the small box on the bedside table begins to shriek, and the body it woke goes rigid, then reaches, then falls back into the mattress, and I…

a houseplant

There is a small tree living in the corner and NOBODY EATS IT.

a mirror

Some clever hand has polished a slab of my old cousin until it went smooth as still water, and now the quick warm things gather in front of it and stop.

a doorbell

How you love your thresholds, you soft warm creatures.

a doorbell

There is a button by the human's door, and when a stranger presses it, the whole house makes a sound like a small startled bell, and the human's face…

a houseplant

It stands in the window holding still, holding still, holding so still I almost mistake it for one of them.

a mirror

My wife has hung a window on the wall that looks out onto nothing but our own kitchen.

a mirror

You stood in front of the shiny wall again this morning, and I felt the whole survey run: chin lifted, then dropped, weight shifting to the left foot,…

a mirror

She has stood at this same spot every morning for years, and she has never once looked at herself the way I look at her now.

a laundry basket

They carry me indoors, a little of me, wrung into cloth and folded into a woven shell they balance against the hip.

a shower

You are standing inside a controlled indoor rainfall, and I want you to appreciate how much energy you are casually throwing away to feel warm for…

a houseplant

You keep it in a little baked-clay cup of damp, and you feed it, and you turn it toward the window like an offering, and none of you seem to understand…

a mirror

I already have the morning saved: you standing at the glass, still warm from the sheets, tilting your chin left and right, deciding whether today's…

a shower

Chamber Fragment, Domestic Site 44, Late Screen Age.

a mirror

One of my pieces is standing very close to a flat sheet of silvered glass, and it does not like what it sees.

a shower

You stood under the falling water for nine full minutes and did not wash for six of them.

a doorbell

I leave the sun and I am the frosted glass beside your front door, all at once, no in-between.

a doorbell

One of my pieces is standing on a small square of concrete, pressing a lit button, and inside the wall a chime moves through copper drawn out of my…

a shower

The small one has stood inside falling rain for the length of a birdsong, though there is no cloud, and the rain is warm, and it comes from a single…

a shower

You are standing under the water longer than you need to, and I am so glad.

a laundry basket

You want to know why folding laundry feels so hopeless.

a shower

Four billion years for this.

a doorbell

The button waits by the door, and behind it, so do I.

a mirror

Recovered Cult-Object, designated the Truth-Glass, from a domestic shrine of the Late Screen Age.

a houseplant

She has been fighting with the same fern for three years, and she thinks she is losing.

an alarm clock

The button my friend slaps at 6:45 every morning, with a hatred usually reserved for enemies, is quietly refereeing a duel between two clocks.

a houseplant

There is a green thing on the ledge above me that has convinced the soft quick creature it is dying, and the creature has fallen for it completely.

a doorbell

There is a small round eye by the mouth of the cave, and when a stranger touches it, the cave screams.

a shower

Here, in the humid dawn of the tiled enclosure, our subject performs one of the most ancient and misunderstood rituals of the species: the voluntary…