It slinks behind you, there, but not there, when you turn your head. Stop and spin completely and you will see nothing, but that weightedness of a prolonged stare will linger.

It stalks. Its tail twitches, just the end, but it twitches, it knows it has you, it knows you don’t know. It comes close, so incredibly close, so close you can feel illusion shimmer for a moment and return to itself, intact but knowing there is something else.

Even under the harsh glare of sterile lights it can persist, but you can see it now, in glimpses, in moments. The beeps of machines and whirrs of pumps contradict it, gently, but they tell it it can no longer dwell among us, it has to leave, it serves no purpose.

But it’s so seductive. So soothing, so comforting, the pushing away of unwanted knowledge.

And it knows it.

It knows that with every step behind us, we welcome it closer, with every tilted-shoulder glance, we’re hoping that it will transform itself into something real, something solid, something we can rest the mass of our thinking on, behind.

It can be so easy to let it take it all, and lock it away in a wooden box. To let it follow us, then pass us, then clear the way of everything we wish we didn’t see.