What If the Key Forgot

What if the brass key, worn smooth by a century of thumbs, doesn't open the lock so much as ask it a question it already knows the answer to. The teeth aren't teeth at all then, but a sentence written in metal, repeated each time the door needs convincing. Somewhere in that repetition the key might start to doubt its own shape, might wonder if the lock remembers the door before it, the hand before this one. Cut a new key from the old one's outline and something is lost in translation, a syllable filed away. The lock still opens. It just doesn't know why anymore.