I am he

A dog. Shaded in different shades of pencil. The air conditioner hummed on, it felt as if I had been struck by lightning. I stood still. The tension in the air felt palpable. It was also light, airy.  The wooden floor was not registering to my feet. Senses still in disarray. And I remembered.

 A memory shook me to my core. I was sitting in that chair where he, the other I, was not sitting. I was working on my desk. Pencil scratching, sometimes furiously, sometimes with caution. Always working. Eraser, every now and then. But for the most part, I was trying to do it carefully enough that I didn’t need the eraser. Arms cupped around the paper, head bending over just enough to let the light in, and to be able to see all the details in depth. Every now and then, I would get up, make the paper stand on the desk, leaning against the wall, and take a few steps back. From the distance, I would be able to see things I might have missed from so far away.

The chair scraped against the floor. The noise was unusually harsh. Focusing on sound. The sound of the pencil clattering onto the desk. The scratch of the paper as he propped it up against the wall. Thud thud thud, as he took three steps back, the rustling of clothes. Heavy breathing. He stared at it. I stared at him. Me. It was me. He was me. I was hi-

Fear gripped my heart. I knew what would happen next. He didn’t. Something was coming. I had to warm him. Tears burning the corners and undersides of my eyes. One lone tear escaped from my left side. I shook my head furiously, it sparkled as it flew through the air, and landed by his feet. A loud sound to me. But he probably didn’t notice it. I looked at him. He was staring at me, comprehending, and then at the floor. The tear was gone. In this state, he couldn’t see it. But he had heard something. He had felt something. My heart racing, I could hear it. Is that what it sounded like? I grabbed his pencil. The weight was enormous. I could not lift it off the ground. I pushed it away in frustration. It rolled a few inches. I looked at him. He hadn’t noticed. I pushed it again. Then off the table. He jumped back. Startled. “Run.” I shouted. “Run.” He didn’t hear me. “RUNNNNN.” Nothing. He looked up. I remembered. I had heard echoes. I didn’t know what they meant. But now that I was the one making them. I knew. I stomped on his pencil, expecting nothing to happen. It broke. He looked at it, he looked at me. He didn’t see me, but he saw something, he left the room in a hurry, a trace of fear on his face, door slamming shut behind him. I kicked against it, my foot went through it. I walked through the door. The smoke was immediate. Inside, I hadn’t felt it. Out here, it was bright. Poisonous. He was rushing down. The kitchen. Of course. That’s where it had begun. He had- I had put something on the stove. He was rushing to turn it off. But the door was blocked. All doors were covered in flames. There was no escape. There had been no point. I fell to my knees and began to sob.