I woke up at 2 AM to a sound from the kitchen.
I lay still for a moment, listening. Nothing further. I figured it was the building settling, or a car outside, or the refrigerator. The normal inventory of night sounds that turn into nothing.
I went to the kitchen anyway because I was awake and thirsty.
There was a glass on the counter that hadn't been there when I went to bed.
Standard glass, one of mine, from the cabinet. Set on the counter near the sink. Empty. I hadn't left it there — I'd done the dishes before bed, I'm methodical about it, the counter had been clear.
I picked it up.
It was warm.
Not room temperature. Warm, the way a glass is warm when it's recently been held. When someone's hands have been around it.
I stood in my kitchen at 2 AM holding a warm glass and listening to my apartment be completely empty and silent.
Then I put the glass in the sink, went back to bed, and did not sleep.
In the morning I looked at the glass. Room temperature. No evidence of anything.
I've thought about every explanation. Sleepwalking — possible, I suppose. Someone in my apartment — the lock was intact. The glass warming itself — physically impossible.
I still don't leave glasses on the counter. Not because it would happen again. Because of what it felt like to hold a warm glass in an empty apartment at 2 AM.
Because of the specific understanding that comes from holding something that someone was just holding, in a place where there is no one.