The knot
(21 May 2026)
You know when excess electrical charge builds up on your body from friction with clothing or shoes, causing a sudden discharge — spark — the moment you touch a conductive surface or another person?
Well, it’s just the same static shocks, but in my head (my physical head), very mildly, and without having touched anything. Once a day for the past week.
(3 June 2026)
I thought I might have had, tonight, my first paranormal experience.
When I lifted the rubbish bags placed next to the bin in my kitchen, there was a puddle on the floor underneath. I assumed it had formed because one of the bags I was gathering up to take to the street wheeled bins had ripped. And I scrubbed the puddle.
Another puddle, just like the former, had appeared out of nowhere in the same spot, as I went to make myself a ColaCao with cold milk, later.
I hadn’t been back in the kitchen, nothing had leaked there, no bag or anything had been put there this time, there wasn’t a trickle of liquid coming from the washing machine or the sink, the tile below was not cracked. No leaks. No one in the house.
It was an isolated puddle, yes, out of nowhere.
The third puddle, however, did have a physical source. I caught a glimpse of the same liquid seeping between the adjacent tiles, pointing towards the sink.
(4 June 2026)
I cleaned the inner courtyard at work. The sound and glee of the water felt good, but the time I had spent sweeping beforehand was deleterious: that knot between my side and back, which had almost stopped bothering me these past few days, came back electric; the dust triggered sneezing, the sneezing affected the knot, and, amidst the pain, I wondered if the electricity in my head was another seemingly isolated puddle but actually connected to the knot.
I do not want to tell the landlord about the other puddle, the literal puddle in the kitchen — plus two small leaks in the metal pipe that runs from the water heater to the wall — until the sink is clear.
There will be pain in the knot every time I bend down to turn the water shut-off valve on or off, and every time I wash the dishes in the uneasy sink in the narrow corner filled with obstacles. But I want the sink to be clear before the landlord, with or without the plumber, appears in the flat to see the issue. I could simply move the dirty dishes somewhere else, of course, but I don’t want him to turn up and find them piled up there. So I cannot tell him yet. I will try and do the dishes tonight, tell the landlord tomorrow, and we’ll see when the plumber can come.
Hardly had I thought that the positive side was that the knot was a knot and not a hernia or something, since the pain from hernias or somethings does not subside, when I found out that the pain from a hernia can subside without surgery.