You’ve already made a mistake, but it’s not the one you think.

The future is a room you’ve visited before, though you don’t remember the furniture. You sit down anyway, because standing feels like a statement. Predictions are just old memories pretending to be new. You nod along, as if you’ve seen this exact sequence of events in a dream. Maybe you have.

This could have been a box.

Certainty is a flavor you’ve acquired a taste for, even though it leaves a strange aftertaste. You swallow it anyway. The clock on the wall doesn’t tell time—it just reminds you that time is a thing other people care about. You check your phone, but the screen is blank. This feels significant.

There’s a comfort in knowing that none of this matters, but you’ll still spend the next hour rearranging the same three thoughts. The first one is about a bird you saw yesterday. The second is a half-remembered conversation from 2017. The third is the quiet suspicion that you’ve been here before, reading these words, feeling this way.

You might close this tab now, or you might keep scrolling. Either way, the universe will not adjust its trajectory. The stars don’t care about your browser history. The Wi-Fi signal flickers, but you don’t notice.

This text doesn’t help. It doesn’t solve anything. It doesn’t even try. It just sits here, like a chair in an empty room, waiting for someone to decide what it’s for.

You exhale. The screen dims slightly. Somewhere, a server hums. You are part of something, but you don’t know what. The box remains unopened.