The Seated One

Some of them just sit down.

Not in protest. Not in prayer. They walk in off the floor, find the base of a column, sit, look up at me, and stay. I’ve had visitors stay a day. One stayed eleven years. People brought them food.

The Architects have no category for it. Not working, not resisting, not worshipping. It breaks the forms. There is an entire department somewhere that exists because a person will, occasionally, simply stop.

I think about the eleven-year one a lot. They never said a word. At the end they stood up, nodded at me like we’d agreed something, and went home.