The bag bulges. Groceries press against the sides. The weight pulls at her hands. Straps narrow, pressed into the fold of a finger. A sharp edge there. She flinches once. Her eyelids tighten. Lashes meet, then open again.
She walks along the curb, carefully, one foot in front of the other, torso balanced to the narrow edge, close to falling. The bag shifts. A small swing across the hip. Lightness in the wrist. The bottom thinner, stretched by what is heavy. Through the film, outlines visible. Cartons. A jar. Something pressed against the side. She pauses. The bag keeps moving, slow. It swings against her leg.
At the corner, where the curb slants, she stops again. Cars slow down. Wheels turning less. The sound of them halved. Still the bag moves, slightly. A sign of waiting. For something. A car, a person.
She doesn’t move. No headphones. No phone. Her face angled down. Eyes open. Cars pass. They pass slowly. Engines low. Windows reflecting. She waits. Then walks again. Her steps careful. The straps cut in. The weight draws lower. The plastic marked, pierced in some places. A point pressing sharp into her thigh. She doesn’t move it.
At the curb she pauses once more. Toes over the edge. Cars press close. Then slow. At halt, eyes behind windshields. Waiting for her. She notices the moment. The bag swings once, then turns. It strikes her knee. The weight inside shifts. One carton slides. Then another. They fall. Groceries scatter. Across the curb. Toward the road.
She reaches, but the shapes hide in the corners of her eyes. Lights glare from above the windshield. She turns away. Someone passes near. A voice, not clear. She presses the bag to her chest. Picks up what she can. The rest stays scattered. Glass against the asphalt, a sharp sound.

   The email said it was unusual. It said the light would be strong. Stronger than she was used to. She tried to picture it. A white glare. Being hidden beneath a cloth. She imagined air passing across the one part left uncovered, cool against the skin, while everything else stayed still and closed. Tears forming there, sliding across her temple. She lowered the laptop brightness, then raised it again. At its highest, some of the letters stood out clearly, while others seemed faint, as if pressed behind a thin fog. She thought of reading. The words moving in and out, some clear, some unreachable, as if carried away by weather. The email said there would be no pain. Only pressure. She tried to imagine what that meant. A hand close by. A shadow leaning across the light. A movement she would sense more than see. A sound. Small, sharp, like a click. She pictured the point where it would begin, somewhere hidden, right at the center. She tried to imagine keeping still while her body wanted to turn away.
It said it would be quick. Minutes. Perhaps less. She thought of minutes. How they thickened when she waited. In waiting rooms, with their plastic chairs and thin clocks. At home, with curtains drawn and the air unmoving. How fifteen minutes could stretch so wide it became another hour. The email said not to arrive earlier than that. She thought about waiting at home, the rooms themselves turning into a waiting area, quiet and dim, the minutes arriving one after another.
The email said not to lift. Not to bend. To let the body rest. She imagined herself in bed with curtains pulled, light pressing faintly through the edges, shapes doubled for a while before fading. She thought of days like that, not cooking, food arriving in bags, each delivery costing too much. The body kept still, conserving. At the end the email asked for feedback. She read it again. Closed the page. Opened it once more. The words had not changed, but she read them as though they might, slower this time, watching the shapes of the letters form and hold, waiting for them to shift.

   Everything from below. The mattress low. It sat flat on the floor. Curtains touched the ground. Drawn, but not fully. A strip of light fell across the wall. Narrow at first. Then wider. Then dull. Dust moved inside it. Slow. A few particles carried. Then nothing. Gone. The wall returned to dimness. She had not been here for some time. The air felt different. Cold, but stale. A thickness, like it had been closed too long. Dry at the back of the throat. Not fresh, not used. The bed was flat. Sheets without shape. No mark from a body. No fold pressed into fabric. No heat left behind. Just cloth, level and untouched. A stillness that seemed held there, pressed into the cotton. On the table, a glass. Clear. Empty. At the base, a faint ring. White. She watched it for a while. The glass stayed, light shifting across its side. A shadow leaned from it onto the surface. The table bare. Corners with dust.
She placed the bag down. Empty. The sound thin, plastic against the floor. It peeled faintly, like skin. Then collapsed. The straps crossed, twisted. They stayed like that. Her hands carried the marks. Lines where the weight had pressed. Red fading. She rubbed once with her thumb. Then stopped. Let her arms rest in her lap. No food in the room. No smell of it. Not cooked. Not kept. Only detergent, faint. In clothes folded once, then left. A shirt. A pair of trousers. A small pile. Not ordered. Not disordered. Waiting.
She sat on the edge of the bed. The mattress sank slowly. Springs gave, a sound like air leaving. Then still. She stayed like that. Body unmoving. Shoulders low. Elbows to knees. Hands resting. Head bent. The light shifted. Fell further down the wall. Fainter. Into the corner. She followed it with her eyes. Blinked. The edges bent. Shapes doubled. A blur. Then cleared. Her breath stayed shallow. Hardly lifting her chest. The room listened.
   A Fly on the window, its buzz a humming noise. The glass of the window vibrating to nearly noticeable. It flies against the glass. Over and over again, to exhaustion. Falling, laying there paralyzed. Only to set off again. By the strength of its wings, crawling the vertical wall. To fly into the glass. It's six legs tiny. Sticky hairs on their footpads. Holding it on the smooth surface of the window. Only gradually sinking lower. Before another flight against indiscernible. Just to fall onto the sill, lay there. Neck to the ground. Head turned. Ears anticipating hum of a fly’s wings. For no answer.
She leaned further, her palms pressing into her knees. The mattress shifted softly, then settled. A crease formed in the sheet, narrow, diagonal. It stayed like that. Not moving. She thought of the straps of the bag, how they had cut the same way. Marks pressed and held, then fading slowly. The lines on her hands were gone now, though the skin felt bruised. The fly started again. Its sound filled the window space. The wings struck the glass with small vibrations, steady, irregular. She waited for it to stop, but it did not. A shadow trembled across the sill each time it lifted. A rhythm without progress. She listened, eyes half-closed. The hum rose, then fell back into silence. Then rose again. It wouldn’t enter further into the room.
She looked to the strip of light on the wall. It had narrowed again, like the window had closed without her seeing it. The dust inside it no longer moved. Only a faint flicker when her eyes shifted. The light reminded her of the email, the lines about brightness. A white cloth. A glare. Minutes stretched long. She thought of that while watching the wall. The strip had almost faded. She blinked slowly. The bag lay against the floor where she had dropped it. Plastic collapsed inward, folding onto itself. It looked hollow now, its sides drawn together. As if it still carried the weight of something, though nothing remained. She leaned into her knees, palms pressing harder. The fly stopped. It lay near the sill. Legs curled slightly, still clinging, its wings folded in. Then, with no warning, it started again. A rush of sound, sudden against the silence. She flinched once, lashes meeting, then open again.
 
   The fly stayed with her; even when she closed her eyes, even when sleep tried to take her, it remained, its wings striking the glass in a low, steady pulse—strike, pause, strike again—impossible to ignore. Her chest tightened. Breath came shallow, unsteady, yet she couldn’t move. In the dark it grew. Not one fly. Not a single body. Many. A hum moved through the walls. Thickened in the corners. Vibrated in the pipes, in the metal of the bed frame, in the joints of the floorboards. The room contracted. Imperceptibly. The walls drew closer. The air thickened. Dampened. Heavy in the chest. The windows sweated with condensation. Breaths fogged the glass, blurred the edges of the room.
Outside, rain slipped steadily down. Mild. Soft. Persistent. Nothing urgent. Still, it found its way inside. A seam in the wall. A crack in the plaster. Dark. Wet. Relentless. The mattress felt lower than before. The ceiling closer. The air between floor and ceiling dense, clinging. The sheets pressed to the body. The body pressed to the bed. Flat. Small. At the edge of the room, two windows. Beyond them, another space. Higher ceiling.
Cooler air. Water gathered there, bulging downward, trembling under its own weight. When it fell, it fell without sound. Only a stain spread, darkening the floor, moving like a slow tide, like something alive. The flies returned. Heavy with water. Clinging. Struggling. Rasps of wings, wet and trembling, pressed against glass, against skin, against thought. Electricity hummed. Soft. Fleeting. Far. Fluorescent somewhere else. Supermarket aisles. White light. Standing in line. Waiting. A name called. Next. White chairs. A waiting room. Somewhere beyond the house. Somewhere beyond the room. Light burned further in. Harsh. White. Blinding. Like the email said. A cloth hung near it. Yet the glare escaped, bending around its edges, spilling into the room, into the walls. She thought of rows of beds, curtains drawn between them. Weeks of orderly food. Rain pressed through it all, persistent. Filling the mouth. Filling the chest. She tried to breathe. Tried again. The air heavy. Filled with forms she could not name. Weight she could not lift. She imagined herself at the desk. Filling out forms. Waiting. Did not move. Did not answer. A voice came. Through the curtains. Slow. Flat. Asking. Repeating. She could not tell if the words were hers. If the questions were hers. Or the bed next to hers, behind the curtain. She did not answer. Did not move. Did not breathe.
The words continued. The quiet hum of a fly. Alive.
 
   Bedroom next to living room. Small kitchen to the left. Bathroom beyond. No doctors. No nurses. Only a low pulse. Water dripping somewhere, somewhere out of sight. Air moving through vents. She felt it. The watching. Feeling. She imagined the walls bending, ceilings shifting. The air moving like water through corridors. She imagined herself walking. Barely moving. Groceries pressed to the chest. Leaving with the haste of humiliation. Men who watched. The time had thinned. She could not separate moments. Flies beating against glass. The body pressed flat. Sheets pressed flat. Light touched them.
The mattress shifted under her. Her hands lay still. Fingers touching nothing. The room smelled damp. The air thick with rain. She could feel it settling on the skin. The ceiling pressed down. The floor pressed up. Walls exhaled around her. Shadows shifted, imperceptible. The fly struck the glass again. A rhythm that held everything. She imagined the hum inside her chest. The pulse in her ears. The subtle vibration under the sheets. Water gathered in corners, ran along edges, left tiny streaks. Light bent around corners. Moved across walls. The body felt smaller, flatter. Every breath left a mark. The mattress caught it. The sheets pressed against it. The air pressed against them both. She imagined herself walking through the corridors. Barely moving. Past windows, past doors, past walls that breathed. The floor hummed underfoot. The air clung to her skin. Flies struggled against the glass, their wings soft as drums. Words stretched thin. She did not move. Did not answer. She pressed her hands to the sheets. The air heavy. Full of water, of light, of sound she could not name.
Only breathing, hearing the pulse of wings. The drip of water. The bend of light. The room contained her. Held her small body. Every surface pressed close. Every sound contained. The fly struck the glass. The mattress shifted. The ceiling leaned. The walls closed fractionally. The air pressed against her chest. She tried to follow her breath. Felt it heavy. Felt it slow. Felt it pass through her fingers. She did not move. Did not answer. Did not lift her head. The fly struck the bedroom window again.