It started with a chair (not a significant chair—just a regular, wooden one, though when we say "regular," we must acknowledge that nothing is truly "regular" once we begin to observe it closely—like, for example, if you were to consider the scratches on its legs (each one possibly left by a cat, or a nervous sitter, or time itself (which is less poetic than it sounds because time often uses human proxies to scratch its initials into furniture)), and the slightly uneven wobble that it had developed over years (or perhaps days, if it had been born defective—if furniture can be born at all (and now that we mention it, is manufacturing not a kind of artificial birth?—a Caesarean section through assembly lines?))).

This chair sat in a room (a very small room, the kind with a lightbulb that hums faintly overhead (though the hum may only be audible when everything else is quiet (and even then, perhaps only to certain people—some sensitive frequency only loners and poets can hear (which raises the question: are they hearing the bulb, or something in themselves?)))), and in this room was a man named Eloi (yes, like those Eloi from H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine (and no, his parents were not literature nerds—they actually thought it was a Swiss name (which it may be, but that’s beside the point (though what is the point? You’re beginning to wonder, aren’t you? And so is Eloi, sitting on the chair, waiting for something to happen—or more precisely, pretending to wait for something, because he suspects (as you now do) that the story may not deliver something in the conventional sense (plot, drama, movement), but instead might simply expand (like parentheses around thoughts, like bubbles wrapping other bubbles, like thought nesting in thought until meaning becomes suggestion, and suggestion becomes vapor)))))

Eloi had a watch (an old analog one (the kind that ticks, which is important—not just because of time passing, but because the sound of ticking is often used in fiction to indicate suspense, or at least the passage of time that the reader should be aware of (though here, the ticking is not suspenseful—it is simply there (a mechanical heartbeat of a story that has, possibly, forgotten how to end (or even begin (or maybe it remembers both, but in reverse?)))), and the watch had stopped two days ago (or yesterday, depending on when you ask him—which again brings us back to time, not as a linear flow but as a tangle (like headphones in a pocket, or a plot in a story that doesn’t believe in plot))), and still, Eloi wore it.

Now (though what is “now” in a story that meanders like ivy (yes, we’re back to ivy (the metaphor from earlier (see how things loop, how stories chew their own tails like ouroboros wearing spectacles?)))), Eloi stood from the chair (which creaked (as all chairs eventually do (and some chairs creak like they are trying to speak, but have forgotten how to form words)))), and walked to the window (which was shut, not because of the weather, but because the window itself had become a kind of metaphorical horizon (one that allows light but not escape—like a book that hints at meaning but gives you parentheses instead)).

Let us pause (a dangerous move in a recursive story (because pausing might mean falling into another layer (like diving into a mirror inside a mirror (have you tried that? Not physically, of course, but in a dream?)))), and consider why we tell stories at all (is it to understand ourselves? to lie more beautifully? or simply to delay silence (which, as any writer knows, is the true antagonist of narrative (not death, not time, but silence—the yawning parentheses that threatens to never close)))).

Anyway.

Eloi opened the window (yes, after all that build-up about metaphors and horizons, he just opened it (which might be the only plot point so far (and even this, you suspect, is suspicious (like a metaphor sneaking out in daylight wearing sunglasses)))), and leaned out to look at the street.

There was a dog barking (offscreen—so to speak—because the dog is not the point (or maybe it is—the reader decides (if the reader still exists (do you, reader? Are you here with us still, or lost somewhere in the bracketed labyrinth?)))), and a child crying, and someone playing a trumpet badly.

The world was there.

It had always been.

(Even if the story had forgotten to mention it until now (which says something about stories (and perhaps everything about Eloi))).

He smiled.

(This smile was not significant, unless you want it to be (and maybe that’s the point, if we dare use such a word in such a precarious architecture)).

And the chair?

It remained.

(Slightly uneven. Slightly scratched. Full of echoes.)

(((And all the parentheses, finally, closed.)))

—The end (or not).

(Made with help of AI (but that did not made it less fun))