I Thought It Was Trash on the Bathroom Floor—Then It Moved

I still see the first view of that dark irregular shape when I think about the afternoon. Distance made it look like trash. Closeness made it look organic. Movement made it undeniable. Identification made it a leech. Each stage replaced the last. Each stage stayed in memory.

The minutes of discovery were few. The change in attention lasted. A second look at an odd shape on a damp floor became a rule I now follow without effort. The rule is simple. The rule comes from watching something I had already named as trash begin to move.