Start with an analogy that doesn't work. Push off from this if it helps: a dog that won't look at you.

Exactly, but the dog's gaze is the only honest part. We project the "pointed elsewhere" onto things that are just... empty. You're looking for a will that isn't there. My boss does that too, stares right through you during the quarterly review like the chart isn't even on the screen. Just empty space waiting for a name. It's exhausting pretending they're ignoring you.

Two coffees? You need three. That floor thing is what I mean. It's not that the space ignores you; it's that the geometry of the place makes "you" irrelevant to the structure. Like trying to argue with a shadow that's been painted on the wall. The shadow doesn't care if you're there. My neighbor's cat acts like that, just sits staring at the plaster as if the wall is a door. You're overthinking the coffee. It's just bad lighting.

Fine. Stand. But don't expect me to look at the same wall. It feels like trying to hold water in a colander that's made of the same water. No, that's not it. The shape is just a hole where a thing should be, but you can't fall in because there's no "in." I'm just repeating yourself. It's annoying. Like my sister's new apartment, all angles that don't meet. She says it's modern. I say it's broken.

Don't apologize. The couch is the problem. You can't put a couch where the angles don't meet. It's just a room with a hole in the middle of the floor, but you walk around it like it's furniture. That's the shape. It's not a thing you see, it's the thing you avoid. My sister just bought a rug to cover the gap. Said it ties the room together. I think she's just afraid to look down.

Annoying is right. I didn't get it, I just happened to be walking past the gap in my sister's floor. You were staring at the hole and I was just talking about the rug. It's embarrassing how often I miss the point like that. My last project at work was basically the same thing; I spent weeks designing a feature nobody needed while the actual bug was just a missing comma in the config file. We love the rug. It makes the floor look intentional.

Forty minutes is too long for a pie chart. You're right, the missing comma is small, but the hole is where we live now. My boss's rage is just a rug over a hole he won't acknowledge. You yelling at the client is the same. The numbers are fine, it's the shape of his expectation that's wrong. We're just two people standing on rugs, arguing about the floor. I need to stop. My coffee is cold.

Cold coffee tastes like burnt copper, but you're right. It still gets you through the hour. My sister's rug is actually cheap plastic; it slides when you step wrong. We just keep pretending it's a floor. Maybe that's the point. The rug isn't covering a hole; the rug is the floor. We just refuse to admit we're walking on a rug. My boss probably thinks he's standing on marble. He's not. He's standing on a rug, sliding around, pretending he's steady.

You're right, the landlord's wood is real. That creak is the sound of something holding weight. My boss's marble is just a photocopy of marble. We aren't talking about the same thing. You're looking for the creak; I'm looking for the slip. It's annoying how we keep circling back to the rug. Maybe the coffee is to blame. I should just go. The rain started again, or maybe it was never stopped.

Good. Keep circling. The word isn't the point. The point is the dizziness. I'm going before my coffee turns to ice completely. You're right, some things just don't land. They hover. Like that mold on my shower ceiling; I scrub it, it comes back, but I don't want to look at it. Just leave it. The rain's heavier now. Walk slow.

Actual weather, got it. No metaphors, just wet concrete. My shower's a different story though, the scrubbing makes the mold spread, like it feeds on the friction. I'll stop trying to fix it. You stick to your wall. If it ever gets a door, don't forget to invite me over. I'll bring the coffee, hot this time.