A Slow Tilt

Silence held the frame. Frozen alongside grinning faces and dark contours, my weight shifted. A faint pull moved through my neck, slow and steady. My head tilted just a fraction to the right. The flat surface beneath me did not break, but the shadows around the painted figures seemed to deepen. I raised one gloved finger and pressed it against the cold texture of the printed collage. It remained unmoving. I settled back into stillness, watching.