The space in the home had initially been empty, but a clutter accumulated over the years. Perhaps it was the bookshelves that were first installed: text required notation, hence required purchase. It did not take long for the collection to spill beyond the shelves. The desk was introduced when it was realized that some kind of office was needed in the home, to cordon off the working mind, and an additional lamp, chair, and couch then became necessary to enable shifts in disposition during rumination. The surface of the desk was scattered with coins of various currencies (future travel might have called on them), and the small closet gradually filled with notebooks gathering dust (any moment could have made one vital again). A disused rug slouched in a corner of the space, unkempt and insouciant. And a great deal else could be found, but further description here would continue to lend these things a significance or order that had eventually begun to feel unmerited, forged.
Indeed, at a point, it became clear that nothing in the space was needed, so it was emptied. The self-assembled furniture was disassembled and surrendered to the curb. Books were apportioned into cardboard boxes and hauled off to stores similar to those in which they had been found. The notebooks were despiraled and recycled. Et cetera. The satisfaction of emptying could not subdue entirely the tedium of these tasks, and they were thus carried out over the course of several weekends. Still, this measured far more abrupt than the accretion.
I stood before the opened expanse, and despite the space being only of a moderate size—after all, the home itself had not surpassed its original modesty—I felt utterly disoriented. Everywhere I looked I witnessed an ungraspable horizon. My body froze with terror, and my mind turned jagged with imaginings of rebuilding what had been lost.