Human Aquarium

She steps forward into her new apartment. The wallpapers are a beautiful powder blue with repeating flowery loopy designs, and the house is big, considering the price she had rented it for. She sorts the groceries, piling them in the fridge, before traipsing back into the bedroom for a good night’s rest.

She frowns as she looks up. The pattern at the top of the wallpaper closest to the closet corner isn’t right. The two flower petals should be separated, not together. She jumps off the bed. For some reason, her first thought is that perhaps the ceiling has moved closer to the floor.

And after a great struggle with the tape measure, various lengths of duct tape, somehow involving a pair of scissors and then two pieces of the tape measure, she determines that yes, indeed, the ceiling has moved down by two centimeters. Or rather, it might have been the floor. She was not sure. She takes a pencil and carefully draws two lines in the corners, one on the ceiling, one on the floor. She goes back to sleep.

The second day, the pencil mark at the top has disappeared. The ceiling had moved down another two centimeters. She spends the day as usual and places another pencil mark.

Unfailing and with stunning accuracy, the ceiling moves down two centimeters every day, in every corner of her house. She calls the landlord. He calls her crazy and threatens to call the police on her. She calls the company that furnished the house. They call her crazy and say she wants to sue them. She calls her mother. She tells her to get some sleep.

But now, the ceiling has moved down by twelve centimeters and it’s bearing down threateningly upon the top of her closet. That night, she lies awake, trying to catch it moving down. She doesn’t. The next day, she wakes up with black rings around her eyes, and her productivity decreases by 10%, as her boss says.

And that night, she doesn’t sleep at all. She can’t even lie down. The ceiling has moved down two centimeters regardless of the closet, which is now cracked due to the pressure. She realizes that nothing can stop a ceiling. She realizes that she cannot stop the ceiling.

She hugs her feet closer to her, her breath coming out fluently, but a burning weight upon her mind. The witching hour is indeed malevolent; the silence eats away at her judgment and rationality until she is nothing but a trembling mass on the bed.

At last, as the clock far away strikes six o’clock, she leaps up from her bed and looks at the ceiling. It has gone down another two centimeters, and the mahogany closet was now cracked entirely at the top.

She shrieks. Then there's a loud rap at her door followed by a voice. "Miss, it's time for your daily medication.""