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Gillian

T he building is quieter than usual. Not silent—Shergar never allows true silence—but muted, like it’s been padded for sound. Like someone’s preparing the walls for impact.

I stare at the far corner of the room, where the camera is mounted. It doesn’t blink. It doesn’t move, doesn’t do anything. But I know it’s on. I know they’re watching. They always are.

My desk is clear. It always is when I’ve been out. Except today, the lamp is slightly off-center. Tilted just enough to mean something.

I straighten it. Not because it matters, not even because it’s one of the few things I can control, but because I like things the way I like them.

Same as him. That’s what got me into this mess.

I was out for one day, maybe two—it’s hard to say. Time in here moves like a bruise. Slow to show up. Slow to fade.

What I do know is this: when I came back, the air had shifted.

People avoid eye contact. Meetings I used to attend are now labeled confidential. The helper who used to follow me around isn’t assigned to me anymore. Helper 93. The one with the uneven step. Gone.

Someone else is in my place. I don’t know who—but I can feel it in the scheduling gaps, in the quiet where my name should be.

Not long after the realignment emails went out, there was a trip.

They didn’t take me.

That alone should mean nothing. It happens. Realignments. Reassignments. Temporary redundancies. We’re told not to read into it.

But I do.

Because lately, I don’t always remember how my day ends. Sometimes I lie down for a nap and wake up with new files on my desk, new clothing folded in the drawer. Sometimes I wake up on the floor. Or mid-sentence.

The resets aren’t predictable. They’re not daily, or clean, or kind. Sometimes they let me remember just enough—just long enough—to feel the weight of it before they wipe the rest. Like dragging my mind to the edge of coherence, then dropping it.

But I remember everything from before. That’s the catch. The long-term stays intact. I remember my mother’s voice. I remember Kevin’s proposal. I remember Devon’s laugh before she stopped using it around me. I remember my nephew’s first cry, the way my sister looked as she held him in her arms.

They didn’t take the past. They just keep rewriting the present.

I keep a journal in my drawer. Always the same kind—white, spiral-bound, nothing distinctive. They’ve taken it before, scrubbed it clean. So now I use codes. Dates. Anchors.

I pull it out now and flip to the middle.

March 4, 8:32am – executive elevator badge denied.

March 6, 7:10pm – tea had no taste. Room already clean.

March 9, 9:47am – he touched my wrist. Asked if I remembered yesterday.

I don’t remember what I said. I only know I wrote it down fast enough to beat the next blackout.

Some entries are messier. Some end mid-word. Some have deep gouges where I pressed too hard with the pen. Sometimes I forget I already wrote the same line. Four pages earlier.

March 12 – Don’t trust them to let you leave.

Underlined. Twice. In handwriting I don’t fully recognize.

There are gaps—whole pages blank. Did I rip something out? Did they?

The most recent entry is just a time stamp.

March 16 – 2:41pm

No note. No context. Just the hour I must have thought something mattered.

I flip to the back of the journal and scrawl today’s date in the top corner.

March 18

I hesitate, then add a line underneath:

Noticed shift. Trip happened. Not invited.

Another pause.

Someone else is here.

I don’t know who I mean. But the sentence comes out anyway, and I don’t cross it out.

There’s a knock on the glass—softer this time, like whoever’s behind it wants to remind me I’m still visible.

I don’t turn. I just close the journal, slide it into the drawer, and lock it.

It won’t keep them out. But it slows them down.