Neither Abject Nor Object

They had been waiting for a long time before anyone noticed they were there. That is not unusual — most waiting looks identical to not existing. But these were specific faces, with specific histories, and they had arrived at this surface carrying all of it: the year a particular thing happened, the morning after, the face in the mirror that did not quite match the face they had expected to find. * * * The surface held them without asking. It did not need to know their names or what they had done or what had been done to them. They pressed against it from one side or the other — the distinction had stopped mattering some time ago — and the surface held, and no one came to open it from either direction. This is not a story about waiting to be found. It is a story about the structure that holds you when finding is no longer the question.