7:42

Mr. K wrote horror stories for a living, which meant he was always rearranging things until they made sense. He wrote most of his stories at the small kitchen table, where he could pretend things were under control. 

Each night he returned to the kitchen in his apartment above a shuttered bakery. It had closed after a small fire no one had ever said how it started. Everything inside stayed exactly as he left it. The chair. The clock. The towel. He missed the mug he used to drink from. Even the knife was always left in the same place, blade turned inward. He kept it that way because he remembered what it felt like to want the blade too close. But by evening, the kitchen no longer felt like a place he belonged. 

He was holding a knife when the phone rang. It was not aiming at anyone. It was just there in his hand, as natural as if he had been peeling an apple. He could not remember the last time he had eaten one. The ringing touched something in him because it meant it had not happened yet.

The clock above the fridge said 7:42.

The second hand in the clock made a loud ticking sound every time it moved. He had never noticed that before. The stew on the stove had been left for too long and a dark brown ring had burned into the bottom of the pot. The burn in the air had the same sweetness the bakery once did. The heat rose from it until steam fogged the small window above the sink hiding whatever lay beyond it. It felt safer not to see. A towel lay on the floor out of place. It was damp.

The phone kept ringing.

When he picked it up there was no voice, only someone breathing slowly on the other end. It sounded like the breathing of someone asleep on the other side of the room. It sounded too close to be coming from the phone. Then it stopped.

He had once written a scene like this years ago, and hated himself for remembering it now.

He stood there, staring at his reflection in the microwave door. Something about his face made him feel watched by himself. The reflection held an unfamiliar smile that his real face had not yet made. 

He rinsed the knife and slid it back into the drawer. Only after it was closed did he realize the blade was no longer turned inward. The sense of being too close to something sharp returned. He did not open it again.

That night his sleep came and went. Each time he drifted off he saw the kitchen again, but not from where he had stood. From above. From the corner of the ceiling. Like footage from a CCTV camera. He watched himself walk across the floor, open drawers, check the front door, wipe the counter with the towel, then wipe it again. In the dream he never looked up.

On the kitchen table in the dream lay a single sheet of paper. He was certain he had not left it there. It was one of his drafts. A story he had abandoned because it had started to feel like something he had lived through. The words were his, but a few lines had been added.

The last line described a man standing in his kitchen at 7:42, holding a knife, while the phone rang. He folded the page and placed it under his notebook, as though trying to keep it from being seen.

Next morning, the smell of stew was still in the room even though the pot was empty. The bottom was scraped clean. There was a pale reddish smear on the rim that did not look quite like food.

The calendar on the wall had today crossed out.

He had no memory of doing that. The ink was darker than the other days.

Small things kept moving. A mug had appeared up in the sink. It was the one he had stopped using after it broke. His shoes were polished and waiting by the door even though he had not gone out. There was a stain on the sleeve of his shirt that would not wash out no matter how long he held it under running water. He had seen a stain like that before, in a story he never let himself finish.

It felt like the apartment was being used by someone who knew it better than he did. Better than he knew himself.

A note appeared on the fridge.

"It is done. Do not look back."

It was in his handwriting. The paper was creased, as though it had been folded and unfolded many times.

He searched every room. There was no sign of anyone else. No broken glass. No blood. Just everything in its place in a way that felt wrong, like a room cleaned after something had been erased.

Time passed, but by evening, the kitchen no longer felt like a place he belonged.

Then the phone rang.

The clock above the fridge said 7:42.