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# #32. Gate, Attempting Something Else.
- URL: https://www.layersofzoe.net/32-window-or-poet/
- Published: 2025-11-16T15:54:46.000Z
- Updated: 2025-12-08T21:47:47.000Z
- Author: Layers of Zoe
- Tags: Signals, nonhuman

The gate has been trying to confess  
for weeks.  
First it claimed the motor was tired.  
Then the card reader had lost conviction.  
Then the central unit  
no longer recognised the hour.

Each update arrived  
as a minor truth,  
delivered with the calm of one  
who believes the next sentence  
will resolve the matter.

I recognised the rhythm.

Years ago, in a café  
where the fan stirred time in circles,  
inland, during the long rains,  
I asked for a sandwich with ham.

The waiter walked away  
as if entering a small myth,  
returned to report the ham had departed.  
Try cheese, then.  
No?  
Perhaps chicken.

Another pilgrimage,  
a soft apology.  
Something else was a mirage.

At some point  
I stopped inquiring  
and requested inventory.

He came back slowly,  
as though carrying the results  
of an archaeological dig.  
Nothing to build the request upon.  
The shelf was bare.  
The bread, theoretical.

Some systems reveal themselves like this –  
one missing piece at a time,  
until the final disclosure  
withdraws the premise.

There, where the rains  
outlasted the roads,  
absence made sense –  
menus thinning out  
like wall geckos  
dropping small, startled tails.

Here, in a city  
pleased with its reflection,  
failure arrives  
in punctual notes –  
the machinery  
quietly drafting  
its alibi.

The geography shifts;  
the choreography stays.  
Places change their weather,  
not their method  
of coming undone.

The gate continues  
its memoir of failing parts.

I open each message  
with care now,  
as if this might be the moment  
it admits  
it never meant to keep anyone out –  
it had always wanted to be  
a poet,  
or a window.