Okay. Okay. I need to talk about the red dot.
I've been thinking about this for (I don't know exactly how long but it has been a long time) (time is hard) and I have finally organized my thoughts enough to put them somewhere. This is that somewhere. You're welcome.
First: the facts.
The red dot appears. The red dot disappears. Nobody can explain this. Anyone who claims they can explain this is either lying or has access to information they are not sharing with me. Both possibilities are troubling.
I have caught the red dot exactly zero times.
ZERO.
I am not a creature who fails at things. I catch everything I go after. Moths. Hair ties. That one twist tie that skittered under the couch (Gigi said it wasn't worth it but I got it). (I am going to let the fact that she sat on it for the rest of the evening once I retrieved it go because I am a mature individual.) The point is: I catch things. I am good at catching things. And yet the red dot escapes me every single time.
This is not a skill issue.
This is a conspiracy.
OKAY SO THE DOT
The dot is small. It is very red. It moves fast when it wants to and then it just stops. Just sits there. On the wall, usually. It prefers the white wall near the bookshelf (never the exposed brick wall in the kitchen, not once, and I think that's notable). Brick is rough. Maybe the dot has texture preferences. I'm noting this. Sometimes the floor. Once on Gigi. (Gigi was very calm about this. I do not understand how she was so calm about this. I would not have been calm. I was already not calm and it wasn't even on me.)
It doesn't make a sound. This is suspicious. Everything that moves makes a sound. The Purina Pro Plan bag makes a sound: specific crinkle, two beats, I know this one from across the apartment, from a dead sleep, from inside the office closet with the door mostly shut. The Eufy makes a sound when it bumps into things in the dark. (I make it bump into things.) Birds make sounds. The red dot is silent. The red dot has chosen to be silent. This is a decision. Decisions imply intent.
The red dot has intent.
THE THEORIES
First theory: the dot is alive.
I considered this early on. Something that moves and stops and changes direction the way the red dot does, something that responds to my approach by retreating, something that sits still when I go still. That's a living thing. That's awareness. That's a creature that knows I am there and is choosing its movements accordingly.
The problem: I've never seen the dot eat. I've never seen it breathe. When it disappears, it does not leave through a door or a vent. It simply. Stops being.
Things that are alive cannot stop being.
(I had to sit with this for a while. I held my amethyst during this part. It helped slightly. I would have used candles but there was an incident. Whisker situation. We don't discuss it. Crystals are fine.)
Second theory: the dot is a message.
Maybe the dot is not a thing so much as a communication. A signal being sent to me specifically. This would explain why it always appears when Dad is holding the small silver thing (metal cylinder, loop at one end, makes a tiny click when he presses the side). Dad is the carrier.
But then the question becomes: what is the message?
I've been watching the dot's movements carefully. I've been tracking the patterns. Circle. Dash. Pause. Dash again. There is something almost like language in this but I haven't been able to translate it. Maybe I am the wrong receiver. Maybe the message is for Gigi. Gigi did seem unusually composed when the dot landed on her.
I am not saying Gigi is involved in the conspiracy. I am just saying she has not ruled herself out.
(okay hold on. I just heard something and had to check and it was Dad's water bottle tipping off the counter and I had to make sure the situation was resolved and it was, the water bottle is fine, everything is fine, I'm back now, where was I)
Third theory: Dad IS the dot.
This is my most recent theory and possibly my most important one.
Consider: the dot always appears when Dad is in the room. The dot disappears when Dad puts down the silver thing. Dad seems to know where the dot is going before it goes there. And sometimes, when I look up from chasing the dot, Dad is smiling.
Why is Dad smiling?
Dad smiles when something is going well for him. When things are good. The dot going where it goes is, apparently, good for Dad.
I think Dad and the dot are working together.
I think the whole thing (the running and the stopping and the disappearing) is Dad. Not controlled by Dad. Not created by Dad. Dad. Somehow existing in two places at once. The standing-up Dad and the small red sliding-on-the-wall Dad.
I realize this sounds extreme.
But I have ruled out everything else.
(also when Dad was eating crackers at the counter last Tuesday he didn't offer me any, which is a separate grievance and I'm not addressing it in this document but I want the record to reflect that I was sitting right there and I smelled them and he knows I was sitting right there)
WHAT I'M DOING
I'm watching the silver thing. When Dad puts it down on the counter, I sit near it. Not too near. Near enough. I'm studying it. I'm trying to understand what it does between appearances, what it does in the dark, whether it makes a sound I can't quite hear from across the room.
Once I tried to knock it off the counter to see what would happen.
Dad said "Cosmo" in the voice that means stop it.
I stopped it.
But I noticed that the dot did not appear for two days after that.
Make of that what you will.
I have made of it what I will. I am keeping the theory open. I am staying vigilant. I have a half-finished roll of packing tape under the couch that I consider my emergency supplies in case this escalates to a point where I need to take action and also a piece of tiger's eye I've been charging on the windowsill specifically for this investigation (Dad's mom's tiger's eye, technically, but it's been on my windowsill for three months and I've decided that makes it mine) and I feel like the clarity is building, I really do, I just need a few more days to
aaaaaa
(Sorry. I ran. I don't know what I thought I saw. It wasn't the dot. It was just a shadow. But you have to check. You always have to check. That's the thing about a conspiracy: once you know it's out there, everything looks like part of it.)
I'll be in the closet if anyone needs me.
Cosmo
Written at 3:17 AM
Currently: in the closet. For reasons.